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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



J|ouse ot tfje Comlbraps 

By G. LE NOTRE 

Translated from the French by 

Mrs. JOSEPH B. GILDER 



4 



' ' :> ^ -> ^. 3 : 



New York 

DoDD, Mead & Company 
1 902 




THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRtSS, 

NOV. to 1902 

CLASS vS*XXc. No 



Z\2 

.Q7 



Copyright, igo2, by 
DoDD, Mead & Company 



First Edition Publislied 
October, 1902 



Contents 

J'"^ PREFACE vu 

I. THE TREACHERY OF JEAN-PIERRE 

QUERELLE . . . . . i 
II. THE CAPTURE OF GEORGES CA- 

DOUDAL 21 

III. THE COMBRAYS .... 44 

IV. THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE . 68 
V. THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY . .101 

VI. THE YELLOW HORSE . . .140 

VII. MADAME ACQUET . . . .178 

VIII. PAYING THE PENALTY . . .216 

IX. THE FATE OF D'ACHE . . .246 

X. THE CHOUANS SET FREE . . 275 



PREFACE 



AN OLD TOWER 

One evening in the winter of 1868 or 1869, my 
father-in-law, Moisson, with whom I was chatting 
after dinner, took up a book that was lying on the 
table, open at the page where I had stopped reading, 
and said : 

" Ah ! you are reading Mme. de la Chanterie ? " 

"Yes," I replied. "A fine book; do you know 
it ? '' ■ 

" Of course ! I even know the heroine." 

" Mme. de la Chanterie ! " 

" By her real name Mme. de Combray. I 

lived three months in her house." 

" Rue Chanoinesse ? " 

"No, not in the Rue Chanoinesse, where she did 
not live, any more than she was the saintly woman 
of Balzac's novel ; — but at her Chateau of Tournebut 
d'Aubevoye near Gaillon ! " 

" Gracious, Moisson, tell me about it ; " and with- 
out further solicitation, Moisson told me the following 
story : 

" My mother was a Brecourt, whose ancestor was 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

a bastard of Gaston d' Orleans, and she was on this 
account a royalist, and very proud of her nobility. 
The Brecourts, who were fighting people, had never 
become rich, and the Revolution ruined them com- 
pletely. During the Terror my mother married 
Moisson, my father, a painter and engraver, a plebeian 
but also an ardent royalist, participating in all the 
plots for the deliverance of the royal family. This 
explains the mesalliance. She hoped, besides, that 
the monarchy, of whose reestablishment she had no 
doubt, would recognise my father's services by en- 
nobling him and reviving the name of Brecourt, which 
was now represented only in the female line. She 
always called herself Moisson de Brecourt, and bore 
me a grudge for using only my father's name. 

" In 1804, when I was eight years old, we were 
living on the island of Saint-Louis, and 1 remember 
very well the excitement in the quarter, and above all 
in our house, caused by the arrest of Georges Ca- 
doudal. I can see my mother anxiously sending our 
faithful servant for news ; my father came home less 
and less often ; and at last, one night, he woke me up 
suddenly, kissed me, kissed my mother hastily, and I 
can still hear the noise of the street door closing be- 
hind him. We never saw him again ! " 

" Arrested ? " 

" No, we should have known that, but probably 
killed in flight, or dead of fatigue and want, or drowned 
in crossing some river — like many other fugitives, 
whose names I used to know. He was to have sent 
us news as soon as he was in safety. After a month's 



PREFACE ix 

waiting, my mother's despair became alarming. She 
seemed mad, committed the most compromising acts, 
spoke aloud and with so little reserve about Bonaparte, 
that each time the bell rang, our servant and I ex- 
pected to see the police. 

" A very different kind of visitor appeared one 
fine morning. He was, he said, the business man of 
Mme. de Com bray, a worthy vi^oman who lived in 
her Chateau of Tournebut d'Aubevoye near Gaillon. 
She was a fervent royalist, and had heard through 
common friends of my father's disappearance, and 
compassionating our misfortune placed a house near 
her own at the disposal of my mother, who would 
there find the safety and peace that she needed, after 
her cruel sorrows. As my mother hesitated, Mme. 
de Combray's messenger urged the benefit to my 
health, the exercise and the good air indispensable at 
my age, and finally she consented. Having obtained 
all necessary information, my mother, the servant and 
I took the boat two days after, at Saint-Germain, 
and arrived by sunset the same evening at Roule, 
near Aubevoye. A gardener was waiting with a cart 
for us and our luggage. A few moments later we 
entered the court of the chateau. 

" Mme. de Combray received us in a large room 
overlooking the Seine. She had one of her sons 
with her, and two intimate friends, who welcomed my 
mother with the consideration due to the widow of 
one who had served the good cause. Supper was 
served ; I was drooping with sleep, and the only re- 
membrance I have of this meal is the voice of my 



X PREFACE 

mother, passionate and. excitable as ever. Next 
morning, after breakfast, the gardener appeared with 
his cart, to take us to the house we were to occupy ; 
the road was so steep and rough that my mother pre- 
ferred to go on foot, leading her horse by the bridle. 
We were in a thick wood, climbing all the time, and 
surprised at having to go so far and so high to reach 
the habitation that had been offered to us near the 
chateau. We came to a clearing in the wood, and 
the gardener cried, ' Here we are ! ' and pointed to our 
dwelling. ' Oh ! * cried my mother, ' it is a donjon ! ' 
It was an old round tower, surmounted by a platform 
and with no opening but the door and some loop-holes 
that served as windows. 

" The situation itself was not displeasing. A pla- 
teau cleared in the woods, surrounded by large trees 
with a vista towards the Seine, and a fine view ex- 
tending some distance. The gardener had a little hut 
near by, and there was a small kitchen-garden for our 
use. In fact one would have been easily satisfied with 
this solitude, after the misfortunes of the Isle Saint- 
Louis, if the tower had been less forbidding. To 
enter it one had to cross a little moat, over which were 
thrown two planks, which served as a bridge. By 
means of a cord and pulley this could be drawn up 
from the inside, against the entrance door, thus making 
it doubly secure. ' And this is the drawbridge ! ' said 
my mother, mockingly. 

" The ground floor consisted of a circular chamber, 
with a table, chairs, a sideboard, etc. Opposite the 
door, in an embrasure of the wall, about two yards in 



PREFACE xi 

thickness, a barred window lighted this room, which 
was to serve as sitting-room, kitchen and dining-room 
at the same time ; but lighted it so imperfectly that 
to see plainly even in the daytime one had to leave 
the door open. On one side was the fireplace, and 
on the other the wooden staircase that led to the upper 
floors; under the staircase was a trap-door firmly 
closed by a large lock. 

" ' It is the cellar,' said the gardener, ' but it is 
dangerous, as it is full of rubbish. I have a place 
where you can keep your drink.' ' And our food ? ' 
said the servant. 

" The gardener explained that he often went down 
to the chateau in his cart and that the cook would 
have every facility for doing her marketing at Aube- 
voye. As for my mother, Mme. de Combray, think- 
ing that the journey up and down hill would be too 
much for her, would send a donkey which would do 
for her to ride when we went to the chateau in the 
afternoon or evening. On the first floor were two 
rooms separated by a partition ; one for my mother 
and me, the other for the servant, both lighted only 
by loop-holes. It was cold and sinister. 
" ' This is a prison ! ' cried my mother. 
" The gardener remarked that we should only sleep 
there ; and seeing my mother about to go up to the 
next floor, he stopped her, indicating the dilapidated 
condition of the stairs. 'This floor is abandoned,' 
he said ; ' the platform above is in a very bad state, 
and the staircase impracticable and dangerous. Mme. 
de Combray begs that you will never go above the 



xii PREFACE 

first landing, for fear of an accident.' After which 
he went to get our luggage. 

" My mother then gave way to her feelings. It 
was a mockery to lodge us in this rat-hole. She 
talked of going straight back to Paris 5 but our servant 
was so happy at having no longer to fear the police ; 
I had found so much pleasure gathering flowers in the 
wood and running after butterflies ; my mother her- 
self enjoyed the great calm and silence so much that 
the decision was put off till the next day. And the 
next day we renounced all idea of going. 

" Our life for the next two months was untroubled. 
We were at the longest days of the year. Once a 
week we were invited to supper at the chateau, and 
we came home through the woods at night in perfect 
security. Sometimes in the afternoon my mother 
went to visit Mme. de Combray, and always found 
her playing at cards or tric-trac with friends staying 
at the chateau or passing through, but oftenest with 
a stout man, her lawyer. No existence could be more 
commonplace or peaceful. Although they talked 
politics freely (but with more restraint than my 
mother), she told me later that she never for one 
moment suspected that she was in a nest of conspira- 
tors. Once or twice only Mme. de Combray, touched 
by the sincerity and ardour of her loyalty, seemed to 
be on the point of confiding in her. She even forgot 
herself so far as to say : — ' Oh ! if you were not so 
hot-headed, one would tell you certain things ! ' — but 
as if already regretting that she had said so much, 
she stopped abruptly. 



PREFACE xiii 

" One night, when my mother could not sleep, her 
attention was attracted by a dull noise down-stairs, as 
if some one were shutting a trap-door clumsily. She 
lay awake all night uneasily, listening, but in vain. 
Next morning we found the room down-stairs in 
its usual condition ; but my mother would not admit 
that she had been dreaming, and the same day spoke 
to Mme. de Combray, who joked her about it, and 
sent her to the gardener. The latter said he had 
made the noise. Passing the tower he had imagined 
that the door was not firmly closed, and had pushed 
against it to make sure. The incident did not occur 
again ; but several days later there was a new, and 
this time more serious, alarm. 

" I had noticed on top of the tower a blackbird's 
nest, which could easily be reached from the platform, 
but, faithful to orders, I had never gone up there. 
This time, however, the temptation was too strong. 
I watched until my mother and the servant were in 
our little garden, and then climbed nimbly up to take 
the nest. On the landing of the second floor, curi- 
ous to get a peep at the uninhabited rooms, I pushed 
open the door, and saw distinctly behind the glass 
door in the partition that separated the two rooms, a 
green curtain drawn quickly. In a great fright I 
rushed down-stairs head over heels, and ran into the 
garden, calling my mother and shouting, 'There is 
some one up-stairs in the room ! * She did not be- 
lieve it and scolded me. As I insisted she followed 
me up-stairs with the servant. From the landing 
my mother cried, ' Is any one there ? ' Silence. 



xiv PREFACE 

She pushed open the glass door. No one to be seen 
— only a folding-bed, unmade. She touched itj it 
was warm ! Some one had been there, asleep, — 
dressed, no doubt. Where was he ? On the plat- 
form ? We went up. No one was there ! He had 
no doubt escaped when I ran to the garden ! 

"We went down again quickly and our servant 
called the gardener. He had disappeared. We sad- 
dled the donkey, and my mother went hurry-scurry 
to the chateau. She found the lawyer at the eternal 
tric-trac with Mme. de Combray, who frowned at the 
first word, not even interrupting her game. 

" ' More dreams ! The room is unoccupied ! No 
one sleeps there ! ' 

" ' But the curtain ! ' 

" ' Well, what of the curtain ? Your child made 
a draught by opening the door, and the curtain 
swung.' 

" ' But the bed, still warm ! ' 

"*The gardener has some cats that must have 
been lying there, and ran away when the door was 
opened, and that's all about it ! ' 

" ' And yet ' 

" ' Well, have you found this ghost ? ' 

" ' No.' 

" * Well then ? ' And she shook her dice rather 
roughly without paying any more attention to my 
mother, who after exchanging a curt good-night with 
the Marquise, returned to the tower, so little con- 
vinced of the presence of the cats that she took two 
screw-rings from one of our boxes, fixed them on to 



PREFACE XV 

the trap-door, closed them with a padlock, took the 
key and said, ' Now we will see if any one comes in 
that way.' And for greater security she decided to lift 
the drawbridge after supper. We all three took hold 
of the rope that moved with difficulty on the rusty 
pulley. It was hard ; we made three attempts. At 
last it moved, the bridge shook, lifted, came right up. 
It was done ! And that evening, beside my bed, my 
mother said : 

" ' We will not grow old in her Bastille ! ' 
"Which was true, for eight days later we were 
awakened in the middle of the night by a terrible 
hubbub on the ground floor. From our landing we 
heard several voices, swearing and raging under the 
trap-door which they were trying to raise, to which 
the padlock offered but feeble resistance, for a strong 
push broke it off and the door opened with a great 
noise. My mother and the servant rushed to the 
bureau, pushed and dragged it to the door, whilst some 
men came out of the cellar, walked to the door, 
grumbling, opened it, saw the drawbridge up, un- 
fastened the rope and let it fall down with a loud 
bang, and then the voices grew fainter till they disap- 
peared in the wood. But go to sleep after all that ! 
We stayed there waiting for the dawn, and though all 
danger was over, not daring to speak aloud ! 

" At last the day broke. We moved the bureau, 
and my mother, brave as ever, went down first, 
carrying a candle. The yawning trap-door exposed 
the black hole of a cellar, the entrance door was wide 
open and the bridge down. We called the gardener, 



xvi PREFACE 

who did not answer, and whose hut was empty. My 
mother did not wait till afternoon this time, but 
jumped on her donkey and went down to the chateau. 

" Mme. de Combray was dressing. She expected 
my mother and knew her object in coming so well 
that without waiting for her to tell her story, she flew 
out like most people, who, having no good reason to 
give, resort to angry words, and cried as soon as she 
entered the room : 

" ' You are mad j mad enough to be shut up ! You 
take my house for a resort of bandits and counter- 
feiters ! I am sorry enough that I ever brought you 
here ! ' 

" ' And I that I ever came ! ' 

" ' Very well, then — go ! ' 

" ' I am going to-morrow. I came to tell you so.* 

" ' A safe return to you ! ' On which Mme. de 
Combray turned her back, and my mother retraced 
her steps to the tower in a state of exasperation, 
fully determined to take the boat for Paris without 
further delay. 

" Early next morning we made ready. The gar- 
dener was at the door with his cart, coming and 
going for our luggage, while the servant put the soup 
on the table. My mother took only two or three 
spoonfuls and I did the same, as I hate soup. The 
servant alone emptied her plate ! We went down to 
Roule where the gardener had scarcely left us when 
the servant was seized with frightful vomiting. My 
mother and I were also slightly nauseated, but the 
poor girl retained nothing, happily for her, for we re- 



PREFACE xvii 

turned to Paris convinced that the gardener, being 
left alone for a moment, had thrown some poison into 
the soup." 

" And did nothing happen afterwards ? " 

" Nothing." 

" And you heard nothing more from Tournebut ? " 

"Nothing, until 1808, when we learned that the 
mail had been attacked and robbed near Falaise by a 
band of armed men commanded by Mme. de Com- 
bray's daughter, Mme. Acquet de Ferolles, disguised 
as a hussar ! Then, that Mme. Acquet had been 
arrested as well as her lover (Le Chevalier), her hus- 
band, her mother, her lawyer and servants and those 
of Mme. de Combray at Tournebut ; and finally that 
Mme. de Combray had been condemned to imprison- 
ment and the pillory, Mme, Acquet, her lover, the 
lawyer (Lefebre) and several others, to death." 

" And the husband ? " 

" Released ; he was a spy." 

" Was your mother called as a witness ? " 

" No, happily, they knew nothing about us. Be- 
sides, what would she have said ? " 

"Nothing, except that the people who frightened 
you so much, must surely have belonged to the band ; 
that they had forced the trap-door, after a nocturnal 
expedition, on which they had been pursued as far as 
a subterranean entrance, which without doubt led to 
the cellar." 

After we had chatted a while on this subject 
Moisson wished me good-night, and I took up 
Balzac's chef d'oeuvre and resumed my reading. But 



xviii PREFACE 

I only read a few lines ; my imagination was wander- 
ing elsewhere. It was a long distance from Balzac's 
idealism to the realism of Moisson, which awakened 
in me memories of the stories and melodramas of 
Ducray-Duminil, of Guilbert de Pixerecourt — " Alexis, 
ou la Maisonette dans les Bois,** " Victor, ou I'Enfant 
de la Foret," — and many others of the same date and 
style so much discredited nowadays. And I thought 
that what caused the discredit now, accounted for 
their vogue formerly ; that they had a substratum of 
truth under a mass of absurdity ; that these stories of 
brigands in their traditional haunts, forests, caverns 
and subterranean passages, charmed by their likelihood 
the readers of those times to whom an attack on a 
coach by highwaymen with blackened faces was as 
natural an occurrence as a railway accident is to us, 
and that in what seems pure extravaganza to us they 
only saw a scarcely exaggerated picture of things that 
were continually happening under their eyes. In the 
reports published by M. Felix Rocquain we can learn 
the state of France during the Directory and the early 
years of the Commune. The roads, abandoned since 
1792, were worn into such deep ruts, that to avoid 
them the waggoners made long circuits in ploughed 
land, and the post-chaises would slip and sink into the 
muddy bogs from which it was impossible to drag 
them except with oxen. At every step through the 
country one came to a deserted hamlet, a roofless 
house, a burned farm, a chateau in ruins. Under the 
indifferent eyes of a police that cared only for politics, 
and of gendarmes recruited in such a fashion that a 



PREFACE 



XIX 



criminal often recognised an old comrade in the one 
who arrested him, bands of vagabonds and scamps of 
all kinds had been formed; deserters, refractories, 
fugitives from the pretended revolutionary army, and 
terrorists without employment, "the scum," said 
Francois de Nantes, " of the Revolution and the war j 
' lanterneurs * of '91, ' guillotineurs ' of '93, 'sabre- 
urs ' of the year III, ' assommeurs ' of the year IV, 
' fusilleurs ' of the year V." All this canaille lived 
only by rapine and murder, camped in the forests, 
ruins and deserted quarries like that at Gueudreville, 
an underground passage one hundred feet long by 
thirty broad, the headquarters of the band of Orgeres, 
a thoroughly organised company of bandits — chiefs, 
subchiefs, storekeepers, spies, couriers, barbers, sur- 
geons, dressmakers, cooks, preceptors for the " gosses," 
and cure ! 

And this brigandage was rampant everywhere. 
There was so little safety in the Midi from Marseilles 
to Toulon and Toulouse that one could not travel 
without an escort. In the Var, the Bouches-du- 
Rhone, Vaucluse, from Digne and Draguignan, to 
Avignon and Aix, one had to pay ransom. A placard 
placed along the roads informed the traveller that 
unless he paid a hundred francs in advance, he risked 
being killed. The receipt given to the driver served 
as a passport. Theft by violence was so much the 
custom that certain villages in the Lower Alps were 
openly known as the abode of those who had no other 
occupation. On the banks of the Rhone travellers 
were charitably warned not to put up at certain 



XX PREFACE 

solitary inns for fear of not reappearing therefrom. 
On the Italian frontier they were the " barbets " j in 
the North the " garroteurs " ; in the Ardeche the 
" bande noire " ; in the Centre the " Chiffoniers " ; 
in Artois, Picardie, the Somme, Seine-Inferieure, the 
Chartrain country, the Orleanais, Loire-Inferieure, 
Orne, Sarthe, Mayenne, Ille-et-Vilaine, etc., and Ile- 
de-France to the very gates of Paris, but above all in 
Calvados, Finistere and La Manche where royalism 
served as their flag, the " chauffeurs " and the bands 
of " Grands Gars " and " Coupe et Tranche," which 
under pretence of being Chouans attacked farms or 
isolated dwellings, and inspired such terror that if one 
of them were arrested neither witness nor jury could 
be found to condemn him. Politics evidently had 
nothing to do with these exploits ; it was a private 
war. And the Chouans professed to wage it only 
against the government. So long as they limited 
themselves to fighting the gendarmes or national 
guards in bands of five or six hundred, to invading 
defenceless places in order to cut down the trees of 
liberty, burn the municipal papers, and pillage the 
coffers of the receivers and school-teachers — (the 
State funds having the right to return to their legiti- 
mate owner, the King), they could be distinguished 
from professional malefactors. But when they stopped 
coaches, extorted ransom from travellers and shot con- 
stitutional priests and purchasers of the national 
property, the distinction became too subtle. There 
was no longer any room for it in the year VIII and 
IX when, vigorous measures having almost cleared 



PREFACE xxi 

the country of the bands of " chauffeurs " and other 
bandits who infested it, the greater number of those 
who had escaped being shot or guillotined joined what 
remained of the royalist army, last refuge of brig- 
andage. 

In such a time Moisson's adventure was not at all 
extraordinary. We can only accuse it of being too 
simple. It was the mildest scene of a huge melo- 
drama in which he and his mother had played the part 
of supers. But slight as was the episode, it had all 
the attraction of the unknown for me. Of Tourne- 
but and its owners I knew nothing. Who, in reality, 
was this Mme. de Combray, sanctified by Balzac ? A 
fanatic, or an intriguer ? — And her daughter Mme. 
Acquet ? A heroine or a lunatic ? — and the lover ? 
A hero or an adventurer ? — And the husband, the 
lawyer and the friends of the house ? Mme. Acquet 
more than all piqued my curiosity. The daughter of 
a good house disguised as a hussar to stop the mail 
like Choppart ! This was not at all commonplace ! 
Was she young and pretty ? Moisson knew nothing 
about it ; he had never seen her or her lover or 
husband, Mme. de Combray having quarrelled with 
all of them. 

I was most anxious to learn more, but to do 
that it would be necessary to consult the report 
of the trial in the record office at Rouen. I never 
had time. I mentioned it to M. Gustave Bord, to 
Frederic Masson and M. de la Sicotiere, and thought 
no more about it even after the interesting article 
published in the Temps ^ by M. Ernest Daudet, until 



xxii PREFACE 

walking one day with Lenotre in the little that is 
left of old Paris of the Cite, the house in the Rue 
Chanoinesse, where Balzac lodged Mme. de la 
Chanterie, reminded me of Moisson, whose ad- 
venture I narrated to Lenotre, at that time finishing 
his " Conspiration de la Rouerie." That was suffi- 
cient to give him the idea of studying the records of 
the affair of 1807, which no one had consulted before 
him. A short time after he told me that the tower of 
Tournebut was still in existence, and that he was 
anxious for us to visit it, the son-in-law of the owner 
of the Chateau of Aubevoye, M. Constantin, having 
kindly offered to conduct us. 

On a fine autumn morning the train left us at the 
station that served the little village of Aubevoye, 
whose name has twice been heard in the Courts of 
Justice, once in the trial of Mme. de Combray and 
once in that of Mme. de Jeufosse. Those who have 
no taste for these sorts of excursions cannot under- 
stand their charm. Whether it be a little historical 
question to be solved, an unknown or badly authen- 
ticated fact to be elucidated, this document hunt with 
its deceptions and surprises is the most amusing kind 
of chase, especially in company with a delver like 
Lenotre, endowed with an admirable y^^ir that always 
puts him on the right track. There was, moreover, 
a particular attraction in this old forgotten tower, in 
which we alone were interested, and in examining 
into Moisson's story ! 

Of the chateau that had been built by the Marechal 
de Marillac, and considerably enlarged by Mme. de 



PREFACE xxiii 

Combray, nothing, unhappily, remains but the out- 
buildings, a terrace overlooking the Seine, the court 
of honour turned into a lawn, an avenue of old limes 
and the ancient fence. A nevv^ building replaced the 
old one fifty years ago. The little chateau, " Gros- 
Mesnil,'* near the large one has recently been restored. 

But the general effect is the same as in 1804. 
Seeing the great woods that hug the outer wall so 
closely, one realises how well they lent themselves to 
the mysterious comings and goings, to the secret 
councils, to the role destined for it by Mme. de 
Combray, preparing the finest room for the arrival of 
the King or the Comte d'Artois, and in both the great 
and little chateau, arranging hiding-places, one of 
which alone could accommodate forty armed men. 

The tower is still there, far from the chateau, at 
the summit of a wooded hill in the centre of a clear- 
ing, which commands the river valley. It is a squat, 
massive construction, of forbidding aspect, such as 
Moisson described, with thick walls, and windows so 
narrow that they look more like loopholes. It seems 
as if it might originally have been one of the guard- 
houses or watch-towers erected on the heights from 
Nantes to Paris, like the tower of Montjoye whose 
ditch is recognisable in the Forest of Marly, or those 
of Montaigu and Hennemont, whose ruins were still 
visible in the last century. Some of these towers 
were converted into mills or pigeon-houses. Ours, 
whose upper story and pointed roof had been de- 
molished and replaced by a platform at an uncertain 
date, was flanked by a wooden mill, burnt before the 



xxiv PREFACE 

Revolution, for it is not to be found in Cassini's 
chart which shows all in the region. The tower 
and its approaches are still known as the " burnt 
mill." 

There remains no trace of the excavation which 
was in front of the entrance in 1804, and which must 
have been the last vestige of an old moat. The 
threshold crossed, we are in the circular chamber j at 
the end facing the door is the window, the bars of 
which have been taken down ; on the left a modern 
chimneypiece replaces the old one, and on the right 
is the staircase, in good condition. The trap-door 
has disappeared from under it, the cellar being aban- 
doned as useless. On the first floor as on the second, 
where the partitions have been removed, there are 
still traces of them, with fragments of wall-paper. 
The very little daylight that filters through the win- 
dows justifies Mme. Moisson*s exclamation, " It is a 
prison ! " The platform, from which the view is 
very fine, has been renewed, like the staircase. But 
from top to bottom all corresponds with Moisson's 
description. 

All that remained now was to find out how one 
could get into the cellar from outside. We had two 
excellent guides ; our kind host, M. Constantin, and 
M. I'Abbe Drouin, the cure of Aubevoye, who knew 
all the local traditions. They mentioned the " Grotto 
of the Hermit ! " O Ducray-Duminil ! — Thou 
again ! 

The grotto is an old quarry in the side of the hill 
towards the Seine, below the tower and having no 



PREFACE XXV 

apparent communication with it, but so situated that 
an underground passage of a few yards would unite 
them. The grotto being now almost filled up, the 
entrance to this passage has disappeared. Looking 
at it, so innocent in appearance now under the brush 
and brambles, I seemed to see some Chouan by star- 
light, eye and ear alert, throw himself into it like a 
rabbit into its hole, and creep through to the tower, 
to sleep fully dressed on the pallet on the second 
floor. Evidently this tower, planned as were all 
Mme. de Combray's abodes, was one of the many 
refuges arranged by the Chouans from the coast of 
Normandy to Paris and known only to themselves. 

But why was Mme. Moisson accommodated there 
without being taken into her hostess's confidence ? 
If Mme. de Combray wished to avert suspicion by 
having two women and a child there, she might have 
told them so ; and if she thought Mme. Moisson too 
excitable to hear such a confession, she should not 
have exposed her to nocturnal mysteries that could 
only tend to increase her excitement ! When Phelip- 
peaux was questioned, during the trial of Georges 
Cadoudal, about Moisson's father, who had disap- 
peared, he replied that he lived in the street and island 
of Saint-Louis near the new bridge ; that he was an 
engraver and manager of a button factory ; that Mme. 
Moisson had a servant named R. Petit- Jean, married 
to a municipal guard. Was it through fear of this 
woman's writing indiscreetly to her husband that 
Mme. de Combray remained silent ? But in any 
case, why the tower ? 



xxvi PREFACE 

However this may be, the exactness of Moisson*s 
reminiscences was proved. But the trap-door had not 
been forced, as he believed, by Chouans fleeing after 
some nocturnal expedition. This point was already 
decided by the first documents that Lenotre had col- 
lected for this present work. There was no expedi- 
tion of the sort in the neighbourhood of Tournebut 
during the summer of 1804. They would not have 
risked attracting attention to the chateau where was 
hidden the only man whom the Chouans of Normandy 
judged capable of succeeding Georges, and whom 
they called "Le Grand Alexandre" — the Vicomte 
Robert d'Ache. Hunted through Paris like all the 
royalists denounced by Querelle, he had managed to 
escape the searchers, to go out in one of his habitual 
disguises when the gates were reopened, to get to 
Normandy by the left bank of the Seine and take 
refuge with his old friend at Tournebut, where he 
lived for fourteen months under the name of Des- 
lorieres, his presence there never being suspected by 
the police. 

He was certainly, as well as Bonnoeil, Mme. de 
Combray's eldest son, one of the three guests with 
whom Moisson took supper on the evening of his 
arrival. The one who was always playing cards or 
tric-trac with the Marquise, and whom she called her 
lawyer, might well have been d'Ache himself. As to 
the stealthy visitors at the tower, given the presence 
of d'Ache at Tournebut, it is highly probable that 
they were only passing by there to confer with him, 
taking his orders secretly in the woods without even 



PREFACE xxvii 

appearing at the chateau, and then disappearing as 
mysteriously as they had come. 

For d'Ache in his retreat still plotted and made an 
effort to resume, with the English minister, the in- 
trigue that had just failed so miserably, Moreau hav- 
ing withdrawn at the last minute. The royalist 
party was less intimidated than exasperated at the 
deaths of the Duke d'Enghien, Georges and Pichegru, 
and did not consider itself beaten even by the procla- 
mation of the Empire, which had not excited in the 
provinces — above all in the country — the enthusiasm 
announced in the official reports. 

In reality it had been accepted by the majority of 
the population as a government of expediency, which 
would provisionally secure threatened interests, but 
whose duration was anything but certain. It was too 
evident that the Empire was Napoleon, as the Con- 
sulate had been Bonaparte — that everything rested on 
the head of one man. If an infernal machine re- 
moved him, royalty would have a good opportunity. 
His life was not the only stake ; his luck itself was 
very hazardous. Founded on victory, the Empire 
was condemned to be always victorious. War could 
undo what war had done. And this uneasiness is 
manifest in contemporary memoirs and correspond- 
ence. More of the courtiers of the new regime than 
one imagines were as sceptical as Mme. Mere, econo- 
mising her revenues and saying to her mocking 
daughters, " You will perhaps be very glad of them, 
some day ! " In view of a possible catastrophe many 
of these kept open a door for retreat towards the 



XXTUl 



PREFACE 



Bourbons^ and vaguelv encouraged hopes of assistance 
that could onlv be depended on in case of their suc- 
cess, but which the royalists believed in as positive 
and immediate. As to the disaster which might 
bring it about, they hoped for its early coming, and 
promised it to the impatient Chouans — the disem- 
barkation of an Anglo-Russian armv — the rising of 
the West — the entrance of Lc > X^'III nto his 
g : : : of Paris — and the :f:. .: of tne Corsican 

:o : s > -i: d ! Predictions th:. r:: n.t so wild at'ter 
li'.. Ten V----: Titer itwi? : i::: vr'.'.shed fact in 

il:::c>: :.... .:^ s. Anc .-• 

: ? ' Frotie^ Georges, Pi 
o: e had to fold the:: 

see" :r.c E;r: :e crumble by its c 
"VVe mice these reHec:-:::5 



.s.ir.i li. 



•.r :r:: ;, rii? 


in poli- 


,:-.. d'Ache, 


would 


T". ev wou 


Id have 


-:..-ht. 




-■■ -- — i. 


to the 


r:-M:f .;-. :hLe 


setting 


■' :;.r :r :-.e : 


-A the 


~~ - 


-• 2nd 



i'A:he 



e had in 



em, 



T: 



O-e^ 



-::e :•/ Li ' 

his ^ Memo: 
taks, roman 



; unhappv woman — the de- 
^ rr the coach with state 

- r .-.::. r:'> men, for the 

r : : r : . e : :.:.: c: Le Chevalier ; 

.-.:.;. : : :: the imperial po- 

V5 --::?:>. i:.i the cowardly 

:: : _ : :, f : 25t of it in 

" — h^ve If 7.-. :'f ::.f"r; ::* several 

: " : r. vels, u - ere. r. ■ 2 .: : r . 2 vs too 



PREFACE xxix 

great a part, and whose misinformed authors, Hippo- 
lyte Bonnelier, Comtesse de Mirabeau, Chennevieres, 
etc., have taken great advantage of the liberty used in 
works of imagination. There is only one reproach 
to be made — that they did not have the genius of 
Balzac. But we may criticise more severely the so- 
called historical writings about Mme. de Combray, 
her family and residences, and the Chateau of Tourne- 
but which M. Romberg shows us flanked by four 
feudal towers, and which MM. Le Prevost and 
Bourdon say was demolished in 1807. 

Mme. d'Abrantes, with her usual veracity, describes 
the luxurious furniture and huge lamps in the " laby- 
rinths of Tournebut, of which one must, as it were, 
have a plan, so as not to lose one's way." She shows 
us Le Chevalier, crucifix in hand, haranguing the as- 
sailants in the wood of Quesnay (although he was in 
Paris that day to prove an alibi), and gravely adds, 
" I know some one who was in the coach and who 
alone survived, the seven other travellers having been 
massacred and their bodies left on the road." Now 
there was neither coach nor travellers, and no one 
was killed ! 

M. de la Sicotlere's mistakes are still stranger. At 
the time that he was preparing his great work 
on "Frotte and the Norman Insurrections," he 
learned from M. Gustave Bord that I had some 
special facts concerning Mme. de Combray, and 
wrote to ask me about them. I sent him a resume 
of Moisson's story, and asked him to verify its cor- 
rectness. And on that he went finely astray. 



XXX PREFACE 

Mme. de Combray had two residences besides her 
house at Rouen ; one at Aubevoye, where she had 
lived for a long while, the other thirty leagues away, 
at Donnay, in the department of Orne, where she no 
longer went, as her son-in-law had settled himself 
there. Two towers have the same name of Tourne- 
but 5 the one at Aubevoye is ours ; the other, some 
distance from Donnay, did not belong to Mme. de 
Combray. 

Convinced solely by the assertions of MM. Le 
Prevost and Bourdon that in 1804 the Chateau of 
Aubevoye and its tower no longer existed, and that 
Mme. de Combray occupied Donnay at that date, M. 
de la Sicotiere naturally mistook one Tournebut for 
the other, did not understand a single word of Mois- 
son's story, which he treated as a chimera, and in 
his book acknowledges my communications in this 
disdainful note : 

" Confusion has arisen in many minds between the two 
Tournebuts, so different, however, and at such a distance 
from each other, and has given birth to many strange and 
romantic legends ; inaccessible retreats arranged for outlaws 
and bandits in the old tower, nocturnal apparitions, innocent 
victims paying with their lives the misfortune of having sur- 
prised the secrets of these terrible guests. . . ." 

It is pleasant to see M. de la Sicotiere point out the 
confusion he alone experienced. But there is better 
to come ! Here is a writer who gives us in two large 
volumes the history of Norman Chouannerie. There 
is little else spoken of in his book than disguises, false 
names, false papers, ambushes, kidnappings, attacks on 



PREFACE xxxl 

coaches, subterranean passages, prisons, escapes, child 
spies and female captains ! He states himself that the 
affair of the Forest of Quesnay was " tragic, strange and 
mysterious ! " And at the same time he condemns as 
" strange " and "romantic " the simplest of all these ad- 
ventures — that of Moisson ! He scoffs at his hiding- 
places in the roofs of the old chateau, and it is precisely 
in the roofs of the old chateau that the police found the 
famous refuge which could hold forty men with ease. 
He calls the retreats arranged for the outlaws and 
bandits " legendary,** at the same time that he gives 
two pages to the enumeration of the holes, vaults, 
wells, pits, grottoes and caverns in which these same 
bandits and outlaws found safety ! So that M. de la 
Sicotiere seems to be laughing at himself! 

I should reproach myself if I did not mention, as a 
curiosity, the biography of M. and Mme. de Com- 
bray, united in one person in the " Dictionaire His- 
torique " (!!!) of Larousse. It is unique of its kind. 
Names, places and facts are all wrong. And the 
crowning absurdity is that, borne out by these fancies, 
fragments are given of the supposed Memoires that 
Felicie ( ! ) de Combray wrote after the Restoration — 
forgetting that she was guillotined under the Empire ! 

With M. Ernest Daudet we return to history. No 
one had seriously studied the crime of Quesnay be- 
fore him. Some years ago he gave the correct story 
of it in Le Temps and we could not complain of 
its being only what he meant it to be — a faithful and 
rapid resume. Besides, M. Daudet had only at his 
disposal the portfolios 8,170, 8,171, and 8,172 of the 



xxxii PREFACE 

Series F 7 of the National Archives, and the reports 
sent to Real by Savoye-Rollin and Licquet, this cun- 
ning detective beside whom Balzac's Corentin seems 
a mere schoolboy. Consequently the family drama 
escapes M. Daudet, who, for that matter, did not 
have to concern himself with it. It would not have 
been possible to do better than he did with the docu- 
ments within his reach. 

Lenotre has pushed his researches further. He has 
not limited himself to studying, bit by bit, the vo- 
luminous report of the trial of 1808, which fills a 
whole cupboard; to comparing and opposing the 
testimony of the witnesses one against the other, ex- 
amining the reports and enquiries, disentangling the 
real names from the false, truth from error — in a 
word, investigating the whole affair, a formidable task 
of which he only gives us the substance here. Aided 
by his wonderful instinct and the persistency of the 
investigator, he has managed to obtain access to family 
papers, some of which were buried in old trunks rele- 
gated to the attics, and in these papers has found pre- 
cious documents which clear up the depths of this 
affair of Quesnay where the mad passion of one poor 
woman plays the greatest part. 

And let no one imagine that he is going to read a 
romance in these pages. It is an historical study in 
the severest meaning of the word. Lenotre mentions 
no fact that he cannot prove. He risks no hypothe- 
sis without giving it as such, and admits no fancy in 
the slightest detail. If he describes one of Mme. 
Acquet's toilettes, it is because it is given in some in- 



PREFACE xxxiii 

terrogation. I have seen him so scrupulous on this 
point, as to suppress all picturesqueness that could be 
put down to his imagination. In no cause celehre has 
justice shown more exactitude in exposing the facts. 
In short, here will be found all the qualities that en- 
sured the success of his " Conspiration de la Rouerie," 
the chivalrous beginning of the Chouannerie that he 
now shows us in its decline, reduced to highway 
robbery ! 

As for me, if I have lingered too long by this old 
tower, it is because it suggested this book ; and we 
owe some gratitude to these mute witnesses of a past 
which they keep in our remembrance. 

ViCTORIEN SaRDOU. 



The House of the Combrays 



CHAPTER I 

THE TREACHERY OF JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 

Late at night on January the 25th, 1804, the First 
Consul, who, as it often happened, had arisen in 
order to work till daylight, was looking over the 
latest police reports that had been placed on his desk. 

His death was talked of everywhere. It had al- 
ready been announced positively in London, Germany 
and Holland. " To assassinate Bonaparte " was a 
sort of game, in which the English were specially 
active. From their shores, well-equipped and plenti- 
fully supplied with money, sailed many who were de- 
sirous of gaining the great stake, — obdurate Chouans 
and fanatical royalists who regarded as an act of piety 
the crime that would rid France of the usurper. 
What gave most cause for alarm in these reports, 
usually unworthy of much attention, was the fact that 
all of them were agreed on one point — Georges 
Cadoudal had disappeared. Since this man, formidable 
by reason of his courage and tenacity of purpose, had 



2 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

declared war without mercy on the First Consul, the 
police had never lost sight of him. It was known 
that he was staying in England, and he was under 
surveillance there; but if it was true that he had 
escaped this espionage, the danger was imminent, and 
the predicted " earthquake " at hand. 

Bonaparte, more irritated than uneasy at these tales, 
wished to remove all doubt about the matter. He 
mistrusted Fouche, whose devotion he had reason to 
suspect, and who besides had not at this time — of- 
ficially at least — the superintendence of the police; 
and he had attached to himself a dangerous spy, the 
Belgian Real. It was on this man that Bonaparte, on 
certain occasions, preferred to rely. Real was a 
typical detective. The friend of Danton, he had in 
former days, organised the great popular manifesta- 
tions that were to intimidate the Convention. He 
had penetrated the terrible depths of the Revolution- 
ary Tribunal, and the Committee of Public Safety. 
He knew and understood how to make use of what 
remained of the old committees of sections, of " sep- 
tembriseurs " without occupation, lacqueys, perfumers, 
dentists, dancing masters without pupils, all the refuse 
of the revolution, the women of the Palais-Royal : 
such was the army he commanded, having as his lieu- 
tenants Desmarets, an unfrocked priest, and Veyrat, 
formerly a Genevese convict, who had been branded 
and whipped by the public executioner. Real and 
these two subalterns were the principal actors in the 
drama that we are about to relate. 

On this night Bonaparte sent in haste for Real. 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 3 

In his lisual manner, by brief questions he soon 
learned the number of royalists confined in the tower 
of the Temple or at Bicetre, their names, and on what 
suspicions they had been arrested. Quickly satisfied 
on all these points he ordered that before daylight four 
of the most deeply implicated of the prisoners should 
be taken before a military commission ; if they re- 
vealed nothing they were to be shot in twenty-four 
hours. Aroused at five o'clock in the morning, Des- 
marets was told to prepare the list, and the first two 
names indicated were those of Picot and Lebourgeois. 
Picot was one of Frotte's old oflicers, and during the 
wars of the Chouannerie had been commander-in- 
chief of the Auge division. He had earned the sur- 
name of " Egorge-Bleus " and was a Chevalier of St. 
Louis. Lebourgeois, keeper of a cofFee-house at 
Rouen, had been accused about the year 1800 of ta- 
king part in an attack on a stage-coach, was acquitted, 
and like his friend Picot, had emigrated to England. 
Both of these men had been denounced by a profes- 
sional instigator as having " been heard to say " that 
they had come to attempt the life of the First Consul. 
They had been arrested at Pont-Audemer as soon as 
they returned to France, and had now been imprisoned 
in the Temple for nearly a year. 

To these two victims Desmarets added another 
Chouan, Pioge, nicknamed " Without Pity " or 
" Strike-to-Death," and Desol de Grisolles, an old 
companion of Georges and " a very dangerous royal- 
ist." And then, to show his zeal, he added a fifth 
name to the list, that of Querelle, ex-surgeon of 



4 THE HOUSE OF THE COxMBRAYS 

marine, arrested four months previously, under slight 
suspicion, but described in the report as a poor- 
spirited creature of whom " something might be 
expected." 

"This one," said Bonaparte on reading the name 
of Querelle, and the accompanying note, " is more 
of an intriguer than a fanatic j he will speak." 

The same day the five, accused of enticing away 
soldiers and corresponding with the enemies of the 
Republic, were led before a military commission over 
which General Duplessis presided ; Desol and Pioge 
were acquitted, returned to the hands of the govern- 
ment and immediately reincarcerated. Picot, Le- 
bourgeois and Querelle, condemned to death, were 
transferred to the Abbaye there to await their execu- 
tion on the following day. 

" There must be no delay, you understand," said 
Bonaparte, " I will not have it." 

But nevertheless it was necessary to give a little 
time for the courage of the prisoners to fail, and for 
the police to aid in bringing this about. 

There was nothing to be expected of Picot or 
Lebourgeois ; they knew nothing of the conspiracy 
and were resigned to their fate; but their deaths 
could be used to intimidate Querelle who was less 
firm, and the authorities did not fail to make the most 
of the opportunity. He was allowed to be present 
during all the preparations; he witnessed the arrival 
of the soldiers who were to shoot his companions ; he 
saw them depart and was immediately told that it was 
" now his turn." Then to prolong his agony he was 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 5 

left alone in the gloomy chamber where Maillard's 
tribunal had formerly sat. This tragic room was 
lighted by a small, strongly-barred window looking 
out on the square. From this window the doomed 
man saw the soldiers who were to take him to the 
plain of Crenelle drawn up in the narrow square and 
perceived the crowd indulging in rude jokes while 
they waited for him to come out. One of the sol- 
diers had dismounted and tied his horse to the bars of 
the window ; while within the prison the noise of 
quick footsteps was heard, doors opening and shutting 
heavily, all indicating the last preparations. 

Querelle remained silent for a long time, crouched 
up in a corner. Suddenly, as if fear had driven him 
mad, he began to call desperately, crying that he did 
not want to die, that he would tell all he knew, im- 
ploring his gaolers to fly to the First Consul and ob- 
tain his pardon, at the same time calling with sobs 
upon General Murat, Governor of Paris, swearing 
that he would make a complete avowal if only he 
would command the soldiers to return to their quar- 
ters. Although Murat could see nothing in these 
ravings but a pretext for gaining a few hours of life, 
he felt it his duty to refer the matter to the First 
Consul, who sent word of it to Real. All this had 
taken some time and meanwhile the unfortunate 
Querelle, seeing the soldiers still under his window 
and the impatient crowd clamouring for his appear- 
ance, was in the last paroxysm of despair. When 
Real opened the door he saw, cowering on the flags 
and shaking with fear, a little man with a pock- 



6 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

marked face, black hair, a thin and pointed nose and 
grey eyes continually contracted by a nervous affec- 
tion. 

"You have announced your intention of making 
some revelations," said Realj "I have come to hear 
them." 

But the miserable creature could scarcely articulate. 
Real was obliged to reassure him, to have him carried 
into another room, and to hold out hopes of mercy if 
his confessions were sufficiently important. At last, 
still trembling, and in broken words, with great effort 
the prisoner confessed that he had been in Paris for 
six months, having come from London with Geor- 
ges Cadoudal and six of his most faithful officers j 
they had been joined there by a great many more 
from Bretagne or England ; there were now more 
than one hundred of them hidden in Paris, waiting for 
an opportunity to carry off Bonaparte, or to assassin- 
ate him. He added more details as he grew calmer. 
A boat from the English navy had landed them at 
Biville near Dieppe ; there a man from Eu or Treport 
had met them and conducted them a little way from 
the shore to a farm of which Querelle did not know 
the name. They left again in the night, and in this 
way, from farm to farm, they journeyed to Paris 
where they did not meet until Georges called them 
together ; they received their pay in a manner agreed 
upon. His own share was deposited under a stone in 
the Champs Elysees every week, and he fetched it 
from there. A " gentleman " had come to meet them 
at the last stage of their journey, near the village of 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 7 

Saint-Leu-Taverny, to prepare for their entry into 
Paris and help them to pass the barrier. 

One point stood out boldly in all these revelations : 
Georges was in Paris ! Real, whose account we have 
followed, left Querelle and hastened to the Tuileries. 
The First Consul was in the hands of Constant, his 
valet, when the detective was announced. Noticing 
his pallor, Bonaparte supposed he had just come from 
the execution of the three condemned men. 

" It is over, isn't it ? " he said. 

" No, General," replied Real. 

And seeing his hesitation the Consul continued : 
" You may speak before Constant." 

"Well then, — Georges and his band are in Paris." 

On hearing the name of the only man he feared 
Bonaparte turned round quickly, made the sign of the 
cross, and taking Real by the sleeve led him into the 
adjoining room. 

So the First Consul's police, so numerous, so care- 
ful, and so active, the police who according to the 
Moniteur " had eyes everywhere," had been at fault 
for six months ! A hundred reports were daily piled 
up on Real's table, and not one of them had men- 
tioned the goings and comings of Georges, who 
travelled with his Chouans from Dieppe to Paris, sup- 
ported a little army, and planned his operations with 
as much liberty as if he were in London. These 
revelations were so alarming that they preferred not 
to believe them. Querelle must have invented this 
absurd story as a last resource for prolonging his life. 
To set at rest all doubt on this subject he must be 



8 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

convinced of the imposture. If it was true that he 
had accompanied the "brigands'* from the sea to 
Paris, he could, on travelling over the route, show 
their different halting-places. If he could do this his 
life was to be spared. 

From the 27th January, when he made his first dec- 
larations, Querelle was visited every night by Real 
or Desmarets who questioned him minutely. The 
unfortunate creature had sustained such a shock, that, 
even while maintaining his avowals, he would be 
seized with fits of madness, and beating his breast, 
would fall on his knees and call on those whom fear 
of death had caused him to denounce, imploring their 
p^irdon. When he learned what was expected of him 
he appeared to be overwhelmed, not at the number 
of victims he was going to betray, but because he was 
aghast at the idea of leading the detectives over a 
road that he had traversed only at night, and that he 
feared he might not remember. The expedition set 
out on February 3d. Real had taken the precaution 
to have an escort of gendarmes for the prisoner whom 
Georges and his followers might try to rescue. The 
detachment was commanded by a zealous and intelli- 
gent officer, Lieutenant Manginot, assisted by a giant 
called Pasque, an astute man celebrated for the sure- 
ness of his attack. They left Paris at dawn by the 
Saint-Denis gate and took the road to I'lsle-Adam. 

The first day's search was without result. Querelle 
thought he remembered that a house in the village of 
Taverny had sheltered the Chouans the night before 
their entry into Paris ; but at the time he had not paid 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 9 

any attention to localities, and in spite of his efforts, 
he could be positive of nothing. The next day they 
took the Pontoise road from Pierrelaye to Francon- 
ville, — with no more success. They returned towards 
Taverny by Ermont, le Plessis-Bouchard and the 
Chateau de Boissy. Querelle, who knew that his life 
was at stake, showed a feverish eagerness which was 
not shared by Pasque nor Manginot, who were now 
fully persuaded that the prisoner had only wanted to 
gain time, or some chance of escape. They thought 
of abandoning the search and returning to Paris, but 
Querelle begged so vehemently for twenty-four hours' 
reprieve that Manginot weakened. The third day, 
therefore, they explored the environs of Taverny and 
the borders of the forest as far as Bessancourt. 
Querelle now led them by chance, thinking he recog- 
nised a group of trees, a turn of the road, even im- 
agining he had found a farm " by the particular 
manner in which the dog barked." 

At last, worn out, the little band were returning to 
Paris when, on passing through the village of Saint- 
Leu, Querelle gave a triumphant cry ! He had just 
recognised the long-looked for house, and he gave so 
exact a description of it and its inhabitants that 
Pasque did not hesitate to interrogate the proprietor, a 
vine-dresser named Denis Lamotte. He laid great 
stress on the fact that he had a son in the service of an 
officer of the Consul's guard; his other son, Vincent 
Lamotte, lived with him. The worthy man appeared 
very much surprised at the invasion of his house, but 
his peasant cunning could not long withstand the 



10 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

professional cleverness of the detective, and after a 
few minutes he gave up. 

He admitted that at the beginning of July last he 
had received a person calling himself Houvel, or 
Saint-Vincent, who under pretence of buying some 
w^ine, had proposed to him to lodge seven or eight 
persons for a night. Lamotte had accepted. On 
the evening of the 30th August Houvel had reap- 
peared and told him that the men would arrive that 
night. He went to fetch them in the neighbourhood 
of risle-Adam, and his son Vincent accompanied 
him to serve as guide to the travellers, whom he met 
on the borders of the wood of La Muette. They 
numbered seven, one of whom, very stout and cov- 
ered with sweat, stopped in the wood to change his 
shirt. They all appeared to be very tired, and only 
two of them were on horseback. They arrived at 
Lamotte's house at Saint-Leu about two o'clock in 
the morning; the horses were stabled and the men 
stretched themselves out on the straw in one of the 
rooms of the house. Lamotte noticed that each of 
them carried two pistols. They slept long and had 
dinner about twelve o'clock. Two individuals, who 
had driven from Paris and left their cabriolets, one at 
the "White Cross" the other at the "Crown," 
talked with the travellers who, about seven o'clock, 
resumed their journey to the capital. Each of the 
" individuals " took one in his cab ; two went on 
horseback and the others awaited the phaeton which 
ran between Taverny and Paris. 

This account tallied so well with Querelle's decla- 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE ii 

rations that there was no longer any room for doubt. 
The band of seven was composed of Georges and 
his staff; the "stout man " was Georges himself, and 
Querelle gave the names of the others, all skilful and 
formidable Chouans. Lamotte, on his part, did not 
hesitate to name the one who had conducted the 
" brigands " to the wood of La Muette. He was 
called Nicolas Massignon, a farmer of Jouy-le-Comte. 
Pasque set out with his gendarmes, and Massignon 
admitted that he had brought the travellers from across 
the Oise to the Avenue de Nesles, his brother, Jean- 
Baptiste Massignon, a farmer of Saint-Lubin, having 
conducted them thither. Pasque immediately took 
the road to Saint-Lubin and marched all night. At 
four o'clock in the morning he arrived at the house 
of Jean-Baptiste, who, surprised in jumping out of 
bed, remembered that he had put up some men that 
his brother-in-law, Quantin-Rigaud, a cultivator at 
Auteuil, had brought there. Pasque now held four 
links of the chain, and Manginot started for the 
country to follow the track of the conspirators to the 
sea. Savary had preceded him in order to surprise a 
new disembarkation announced by Querelle. Arrived 
at the coast he perceived, at some distance, an English 
brig tacking, but in spite of all their precautions to 
prevent her taking alarm, the vessel did not come in. 
They saw her depart on a signal given on shore by a 
young man on horseback, whom Savary's gendarmes 
pursued as far as the forest of Eu, where he disap- 
peared. 

In twelve days, always accompanied by Querelle, 



12 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Manginot had ended his quest, and put into the hands 
of Real such a mass of depositions that it was possi- 
ble, as we shall show, to reconstruct the voyage of 
Georges and his companions to Paris from the sea. 

On the night of August 23, 1803, the English 
cutter " Vincejo," commanded by Captain Wright, 
had landed the conspirators at the foot of the clifFs of 
Biville, a steep wall of rocks and clay three hundred 
and twenty feet high. From time immemorial, in the 
place called the hollow of Parfonval there had existed 
an " estamperche," a long cord fixed to some piles, 
which was used by the country people for descending 
to the beach. It was necessary to pull oneself up this 
long rope by the arms, a most painful proceeding for 
a man as corpulent as Georges. At last the seven 
Chouans were gathered at the top of the clifF, and 
under the guidance of Troche, son of the former 
procureur of the commune of Eu, and one of the 
most faithful adherents of the party, they arrived at 
the farm of La Poterie, near the hamlet of Heudeli- 
mont, about two leagues from the coast. Whilst the 
farmer, Detrimont, was serving them drinks, a mys- 
terious personage, who called himself M. Beaumont, 
came to consult with them. He was a tall man, with 
the figure of a Hercules, a swarthy complexion, a 
high forehead and black eyebrows and hair. He dis- 
appeared in the early morning. 

Georges and his companions spent the whole of the 
24th at La Poterie. They left the farm in the night 
and marched five leagues to Preuseville, where a M. 
Loisel sheltered them. The route was cleverly 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 13 

planned not to leave the vast forest of Eu, which pro- 
vided shaded roads, and in case of alarm, almost im- 
penetrable hiding-places. On the night of the 26th 
they again covered five leagues, through the forest of 
Eu, arriving at Aumale at two o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and lodging with a man called Monnier, who 
occupied the ancient convent of the Dominican Nuns. 
"The stout man'* rode a black horse which Monnier, 
for want of a stable, hid in a corridor in the house, 
the halter tied to the key of the door. As for the 
men, they threw themselves pell-mell on some straw, 
and did not go out during the day. M. Beaumont 
had reappeared at Aumale. He arrived on horseback 
and, after passing an hour with the conspirators, had 
left in the direction of Quincampoix. They had 
seen him again with Boniface Colliaux, called Boni, 
at their next stage, Feuquieres, four leagues off, which 
they reached on the night of the 27th. They passed 
the 28th with Leclerc, five leagues further on, at the 
farm of Monceaux which belonged to the Count d'- 
Hardivilliers, situated in the commune of Saint- 
Omer-en-Chaussee. From there, avoiding Beauvais, 
the son of Leclerc had guided them to the house of 
Quentin-Rigaud at Auteuil, and on the 29th he had 
taken them to Massignon, the farmer of Saint-Lubin, 
who in turn had passed them on, the next day, to his 
brother Nicolas, charged, as we have seen, to help 
them cross the Oise and direct them to the wood of 
La Muette, where Denis Lamotte, the vine-dresser of 
Saint-Leu, had come to fetch them. 

Such was the result of Manginot's enquiries. He 



14 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

had reconstructed Georges* itinerary with most re- 
markable perspicacity and this was the more impor- 
tant as the chain of stations from the sea to Paris 
necessitated long and careful organisation, and as the 
conspirators used the route frequently. Thus, two 
men mentioned in the disembarkation of August 23d 
had returned to Biville in mid-September. On Octo- 
ber 2d Georges and three of his officers, coming from 
Paris, had again presented themselves before Lamotte, 
who had conducted them to the wood of La Muette, 
where Massignon was waiting for them. It was 
proved that their journeys had been made with perfect 
regularity i the same guides, the same night marches, 
the same hiding-places by day. The house of Boni- 
face Colliaux at Feuquieres, that of Monnier at Au- 
male, and the farm of La Poterie seemed to be the 
principal meeting-places. Another passage took place 
in the second fortnight of November, and another in 
December, corresponding to a new disembarkation. 
In January, 1804, Georges made the journey for the 
fourth time, to await at Biville the English corvette 
bringing Pichegru, the Marquis de Riviere and four 
other conspirators. A fisherman called Etienne 
Home gave some valuable details of this arrival. He 
had noticed particularly the man who appeared to be the 
leader — " a fat man, with a full, rather hard face, round- 
shouldered, and with a slight trouble in his arms." 

" These gentlemen," he added, " usually arrived at 
night, and left about midnight; they were satisfied 
with our humble fare, and always kept together in a 
corner, talking." 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 15 

When the tide was full Home went down to the 
beach to watch for the sloop. The password was 
"Jacques," to which the men in the boat replied 
" Thomas." 

Manginot, as may well be imagined, arrested all 
who in any way had assisted the conspirators, and 
hurried them off to Paris. The tower of the Temple 
became crowded with peasants, with women in Nor- 
mandy caps, and fishermen of Dieppe, dumbfounded 
at finding themselves in the famous place where the 
monarchy had suffered its last torments. But these 
were the only small fry of the conspiracy, and the 
First Consul, who liked to pose as the victim exposed 
to the blows of an entire party, could not with 
decency take these inoffensive peasants before a high 
court of justice. While waiting for chance or more 
treachery to reveal the refuge of Georges Cadoudal, 
the discovery of the organisers of the plot was most 
important, and this seemed well-nigh impossible, al- 
though Manginot had reason to think that the centre 
of the conspiracy was near Aumale or Feuquieres. 

His attention had been attracted by a deposition 
mentioning the black horse that Georges had ridden 
from Preuseville to Aumale — the one that the school- 
master Monnier had hidden in a corridor of his house. 
With this slight clue he started for the country. 
There he learned that a workman called Saint-Aubin, 
who lived in the hamlet of Coppegueule, had been 
ordered to take the horse to an address on a letter 
which Monnier had given him. This man, when 
called upon to appear, remembered that he had led 



i6 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

the horse " to a fine house in the environs of Gour- 
nay." When he arrived there a servant had taken 
the animal to the stables, and a lady had come out 
and asked for the letter, but he denied all knovi^ledge 
of the lady's name or the situation of the house. 

Manginot resolved to search the country in com- 
pany w^ith Saint-Aubin, but he was either stupid or 
pretended to be so, and refused to give any assistance. 
He led the gendarmes six leagues, as far as Aumale, 
and said, at first, that he recognised the Chateau de 
Mercatet-sur-Villers, but on looking carefully at the 
avenues and the arrangement of the buildings, he de- 
clared he had never been there. The same thing 
happened at Beaulevrier and at Mothois ; but on ap- 
proaching Gournay his memory returned, and he led 
Manginot to a house in the hamlet of Saint-Clair 
which he asserted was the one to which Monnier had 
sent him. On entering the courtyard he recognised 
the servant to whom he had given the horse six 
months before, a groom named Joseph Planchon. 
Manginot instantly arrested the man, and then began 
his search. 

The house belonged to an ex-officer of marine, 
Francois Robert d'Ache, who rarely occupied it, be- 
ing an ardent sportsman and preferring his estates 
near Neufchatel-en-Bray, where there was more game. 
Saint-Clair was occupied by Mme. d'Ache, an in- 
valid who rarely left her room, and her two daughters, 
Louise and Alexandrine, as well as d'Ache's mother, 
a bedridden octogenarian, and a young man named 
Caqueray, who was also called the Chevalier de 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 17 

Lorme, who farmed the lands of M. and Mme. 
d'Ache, whose property had recently been separated 
by law. Caqueray looked upon himself as one of the 
family, and Louise, the eldest girl, was betrothed to 
him. 

Nothing could have been less suspicious than the 
members of this patriarchal household, who seemed 
to know nothing of politics, and whose tranquil lives 
were apparently unaffected by revolutions. The 
absence of the head of so united a family was the 
only astonishing thing about it. But Mme. d'Ache 
and her daughters explained that he was bored at 
Saint-Clair and usually lived in Rouen, that he hunted 
a great deal, and spent his time between his relatives 
who lived near Gaillon and friends at Saint-Germain- 
en-Laye. They could not say where he was at pres- 
ent, having had no news of him for two months. 

But on questioning the servants Manginot learned 
some facts that changed the aspect of affairs. 
Lambert, the gardener, had recently been shot at 
Evreux, convicted of having taken part with a band 
of Chouans in an attack on the stage-coach, Caque- 
ray's brother had just been executed for the same 
cause at Rouen. Constant Prevot, a farm hand, ac- 
cused of having killed a gendarme, had been acquitted, 
but died soon after his return to Saint-Clair. Man- 
ginot had unearthed a nest of Chouans, and only 
when he learned that the description of d'Ache was 
singularly like that of the mysterious Beaumont who 
had been seen with Georges at La Poterie, Aumale 
and Feuquieres, did he undersand the importance of 



i8 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

his discovery. After a rapid and minute inquiry, he 
took it upon himself to arrest every one at Saint- 
Clair, and sent an express to Real, informing him of 
the affair, and asking for further instructions. 

It had been the custom for several years, when a 
person was denounced to the police as an enemy of 
the government, or a simple malcontent, to have his 
name put up in Desmarets' office, and to add to it, 
in proportion to the denunciations, every bit of infor- 
mation that could help to make a complete portrait of 
the individual. That of d'Ache was consulted. 
There were found annotations of this sort : " By 
reason of his audacity he is one of the most impor- 
tant of the royalists," " Last December he took a 
passport at Rouen for Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where 
he was called by business," " His host at Saint-Ger- 
main, Brandin de Saint-Laurent, declares that he did 
not sleep there regularly, sometimes two, sometimes 
three days at a time." At last a letter was inter- 
cepted addressed to Mme. d*Ache, containing this 
phrase, which they recognised as Georges' style : 
"Tell M. Durand that things are taking a good 
turn, ... his presence is necessary. . . . 
He will have news of me at the Hotel de Bordeaux, 
rue de Grenelle, Saint-Honore, where he will ask for 
Houvel." Now Houvel was the unknown man who, 
first of all, had gone to the vine-dresser of Saint-Leu 
to persuade him to aid the "brigands." Thus 
d' Ache's route was traced from Biville to Paris and 
the conclusion drawn that, knowing all the country 
about Bray, where he owned estates, he had been 



JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE 19 

chosen to arrange the itinerary of the conspirators 
and to organise their journeys. He had accompanied 
them from La Poterie to Feuquieres, sometimes going 
before them, sometimes staying with them in the 
farms where he had found for them places of refuge. 
In default of Georges, then, d'Ache was the next 
best person to seize, and the First Consul appreciated 
this fact so keenly that he organised two brigades of 
picked soldiers and fifty dragoons. But they only 
served to escort poor sick Mme. d'Ache, her daughter 
Louise and their friend Caqueray, who were im- 
mediately locked up — the last named in the Tower of 
the Temple, and the two women in the Madel- 
onnettes. The infirm old grandmother remained at 
Saint-Clair, while Alexandrine wished to follow her 
mother and sister, and was left quite at liberty. But 
d'Ache could not be found. Manginot's army had 
searched the whole country, from Beauvais to Tre- 
port, without success ; they had sought him at Saint- 
Germain-en-Laye, where he was said to be hidden, at 
Saint-Denis-de-Monts, at Saint-Romain, at Rouen. 
The prefects of Eure and Seine-Inferieure were 
ordered to set all their police on his track. The re- 
sult of this campaign was pitiable, and they only suc- 
ceeded in arresting d' Ache's younger brother, an 
inoffensive fellow of feeble mind, appropriately named 
" Placide," who was nicknamed " Tourlour," on ac- 
count of his lack of wit and his^ rotundity. His 
greatest fear was of being mistaken for his brother, 
which frequently happened. As the elder d'Ache 
could never be caught, Placide, who loved tranquillity 



20 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

and hardly ever went away from home, was invariably 
taken in his stead. It happened again this time, and 
Manginot seized him, thinking he had done a fine 
thing. But the first interview undeceived him. 
However, he sent word of his capture to Real, who, 
in his zeal to execute the First Consul's orders, took 
upon himself to determine that Placide d'Ache was 
as dangerous a royalist " brigand " as his brother. He 
ordered the prisoner to be brought under a strong es- 
cort to Paris, determining to interrogate him himself. 
But as soon as he had seen " Tourlour," and had asked 
him a few questions, including one as to his behaviour 
during the Terror, and received for answer, " I hid 
myself with mamma," Real understood that such a 
man could not be brought before a tribunal as a rival 
to Bonaparte. He kept him, however, in prison, so 
that the name of d'Ache could appear on the gaol- 
book of the Temple. 

In the meantime, on the 9th of March 1804, at 
the hour when Placide d'Ache was being interrogated, 
an event occurred, which transformed the drama and 
hastened its tragic denouement. 



CHAPTER II 

THE CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 

Georges had arrived in Paris on September i, 
1803, in a yellow cabriolet driven by the Marquis 
d'Hozier dressed as a coachman. D'Hozier, who 
was formerly page to the King and had for several 
months been established as a livery-stable keeper in 
the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, conducted Georges to the 
Hotel de Bordeaux, kept by the widow Dathy, in the 
Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honore. 

The task of finding hiding-places in Paris for the 
conspirators, had been given to Houvel, called Saint- 
Vincent, whom we have already seen at Saint-Leu. 
Houvel's real name was Raoul Gaillard. A perfect 
type of the incorrigible Chouan, he was a fine-look- 
ing man of thirty, fresh-complexioned, with white 
teeth and a ready smile, and dressed in the prevailing 
fashion. He was a close companion of d'Ache, and 
it was even said that they had the same mistress at 
Rouen. The speciality of Raoul and his brother 
Armand was attacking coaches which carried govern- 
ment money. Their takings served to pay recruits 
to the royalist cause. For the past six months Raoul 
Gaillard had been in Paris looking for safe lodging- 
places. He was assisted in this delicate task by 

21 



22 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Bouvet de Lozier, another of d'Ache's intimate 
friends, who like him, had served in the navy before 
the Revolution. 

Georges vv^ent first to Raoul Gaillard at the Hotel 
de Bordeaux, but he left in the evening and slept with 
Denaud at the " Cloche d'Or," at the corner of the 
Rue du Bac, and the Rue de Varenne. He was 
joined there by his faithful servant Louis Picot, who 
had arrived in Paris the same day. The " Cloche 
d'Or " was a sort of headquarters for the conspirators ; 
they filled the house, and Denaud was entirely at their 
service. He was devoted to the cause, and not at all 
timid. He had placed Georges' cab in the stable of 
Senator Francois de Neufchateau, whose house was 
next door. 

Six weeks before, Bouvet de Lozier had taken, 
through Mme. Costard de Saint-Leger, his mistress, 
an isolated house at Chaillot near the Seine. He had 
put there as concierge, a man named Daniel and his 
wife, both of whom he knew to be devoted to him. 
A porch with fourteen steps led to the front hall of 
the house. This served as dining-room. It was 
lighted by four windows and paved with squares of 
black and white marble ; a walnut table with eight 
covers, cane-seated chairs, the door-panels represent- 
ing the games of children, and striped India muslin 
curtains completed the decoration of this room. The 
next room had also four windows, and contained an 
ottoman and six chairs covered with blue and white 
Utrecht velvet, two armchairs of brocaded silk, and 
two mahogany tables with marble tops. Then came 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 23 

the bedroom with a four-post bed, consoles and mir- 
rors. On the first floor was an apartment of three 
rooms, and in an adjoining building, a large hall which 
could be used as an assembly-room. The whole was 
surrounded by a large garden, closed on the side 
towards the river-bank by strong double gates. 

If we have lingered over this description, it is be- 
cause it seems to say so much. Who would have 
imagined that this elegant little house had been rented 
by Georges to shelter himself and his companions ? 
These men, whose disinterestedness and tenacity we 
cannot but admire, who for ten years had fought with 
heroic fortitude for the royal cause, enduring the 
hardest privations, braving tempests, sleeping on straw 
and marching at night ; these men whose bodies were 
hardened by exposure and fatigue, retained a purity 
of mind and sincerity really touching. They never 
ceased to believe that " the Prince " for whom they 
fought would one day come and share their danger. 
It had been so often announced and so often put off 
that a little mistrust might have been forgiven them, 
but they had faith, and that inspired them with a 
thought which seemed quite simple to them but which 
was really sublime. While they were lodging in 
holes, living on a pittance parsimoniously taken from 
the party's funds, they kept a comfortable and secure 
retreat ready, where " their prince " — who was never 
to come — could wait at his ease, until at the price of 
their lives, they had assured the success of his cause. 
If the history of our bloody feuds has always an epic 
quality, it is because it abounds in examples of blind 



24 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

devotion, so impossible nowadays that they seem to 
us improbable exaggerations. 

After six days at the " Cloche d'Or," Georges 
took possession of the house at Chaillot, but he did 
not stay there long, for about the 25th of September 
he was at 21 Rue Careme-Prenant in the Faubourg 
du Temple. Hozier had rented an entresol there, 
and had employed a man called Spain, who had an 
aptitude for this sort of work, to make a secret place 
in it. Spain, under pretence of indispensable repairs, 
had shut himself up with his tools in the apartment, 
and had made a cleverly-concealed trap-door, by 
means of which, in case of alarm, the tenants could 
descend to the ground floor and go out by an unoccu- 
pied shop whose door opened under the porch of the 
house. Spain took a sort of pride in his strange tal- 
ent ; he was very proud of a hiding-place he had 
made in the lodging of a friend, the tailor Michelot, 
in the Rue de Bussy, which Michelot himself did not 
suspect. The tailor was obliged to be absent often, 
and four of the conspirators had successively lodged 
there. When he was away his lodgers "limbered 
up " in this apartment, but as soon as they heard his 
step on the stairs, they reentered their cell, and the 
worthy Michelot, who vaguely surmised that there 
was some mystery about his house, only solved the 
enigma when he was cited to appear before the 
tribunal as an accomplice in the royalist plot of 
which he had never even heard the name. 

Georges started for his first journey to Biville from 
the Rue Careme-Prenant. On January 23d he re- 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 25 

turned finally to Paris, bringing with him Pichegru, 
Jules de Polignac and the Marquis de Riviere, whom 
he had gone to the farm of La Poterie to receive. 
He lodged Pichegru with an employe of the finance 
department, named Verdet, who had given the Chou- 
ans the second floor of his house in the Rue du 
Puits-de-l'Hermite. They stayed there three days. 
On the 27th, Georges took the general to the house 
at Chaillot " where they only slept a few nights." 
At the very moment that they went there Querelle 
signed his first declarations before Real. 

It is not necessary to follow the movements of 
Pichegru, nor to relate his interviews with Moreau. 
The organisation of the plot is what interests us, by 
reason of the part taken in it by d'Ache. No one 
has ever explained what might have resulted politic- 
ally from the combination of Moreau's embittered 
ambition, the insouciance of Pichegru, and the fanat- 
ical ardour of Georges. Of this ill-assorted trio the 
latter alone had decided on action, although he was 
handicapped by the obstinacy of the princes in refu- 
sing to come to the fore until the throne was reestab- 
lished. He told the truth when he affirmed before 
the judges, later on, that he had only come to France 
to attempt a restoration, the means for which were 
never decided on, for they had not agreed on the 
manner in which they should act towards Bonaparte. 
A strange plan had at first been suggested. The 
Comte d'Artois, at the head of a band of royalists 
equal in number to the Consul's escort, was to meet 
him on the road to Malmaison, and provoke him to 



26 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

single combat, but the presence of the Prince was 
necessary for this revival of the Combat of Thirty, 
and as he refused to appear, this project of rather 
antiquated chivalry had to be abandoned. Their next 
idea was to kidnap Bonaparte. Some determined men 
— as all of Georges' companions were — undertook to 
get into the park at Malmaison at night, seize Bona- 
parte and throw him into a carriage which thirty 
Chouans, dressed as dragoons, would escort as far as 
the coast. They actually began to put this theatrical 
" coup " into execution. Mention is made of it in 
the Memoirs of the valet Constant, and certain details 
of the investigation confirm these assertions. Raoul 
Gaillard, who still lived at the Hotel de Bordeaux, and 
entertained his friends Denis Lamotte, the vine- 
dresser of Saint-Leu and Massignon, farmer of Saint- 
Lubin there, had discovered that Massignon leased 
some land from Macheret, the First Consul's coach- 
man, and had determined at all hazards to make this 
man's acquaintance. He even had the audacity to 
show himself at the Chateau of Saint-Cloud in the 
hope of meeting him. Besides this, Genty, a tailor 
in the Palais-Royal, had delivered four chasseur uni- 
forms, ordered by Raoul Gaillard, and Debausseaux, 
a tailor at Aumale, during one of their journeys had 
measured some of Monnier's guests for cloaks and 
breeches of green cloth, which only needed metal 
buttons to be transformed into dragoon uniforms. 

Querelle's denunciations put a stop to all these 
preparations. Nothing remained but to run to earth 
again. A great many of the conspirators succeeded 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 27 

in doing this, but all were not so fortunate. The 
first one seized by Real's men was Louis Picot, 
Georges' servant. He was a coarse, rough man, en- 
tirely devoted to his master, under whose orders he 
had served in the Veudee. He was taken to the Pre- 
fecture and promised immediate liberty in exchange 
for one word that would put the police on the track 
of Georges. He was offered 1,500 louis d'or, which 
they took care to count out before him, and on his 
refusal to betray his master. Real had him put to the 
torture. Bertrand, the concierge of the depot, under- 
took the task. The unfortunate Picot's fingers were 
crushed by means of an old gun and a screw-driver, 
his feet were burned in the presence of the officers of 
the guard. He revealed nothing. " He has borne 
everything with criminal resignation," the judge-in- 
quisitor, Thuriot, wrote to Real ; " he is a fanatic, 
hardened by crime. I have now left him to solitude 
and suffering ; I will begin again to-morrow ; he 
knows where Georges is hidden and must be made to 
reveal it." 

The next day the torture was continued, and this 
time agony wrung the address of the Chaillot house 
from Picot. They hastened there — only to find it 
empty. But the day had not been wasted, for the 
police, on an anonymous accusation, had seized 
Bouvet de Lozier as he was entering the house of his 
mistress, Mme. de Saint-Leger, in the Rue Saint- 
Sauveur. He was interrogated and denied everything. 
Thrown into the Temple, he hanged himself in the 
night, by tying his necktie to the bars of his cell. A 



28 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

gaoler hearing his death-rattle, opened the door and 
took him down j but Bouvet, three-quarters dead, as 
soon as they had brought him to, was seized with con- 
vulsive tremblings, and in his delirium he spoke. 

This attempted suicide, to tell the truth, was only 
half believed in, and many people, having heard of 
the things that were done in the Temple and the Pre- 
fecture, believed that Bouvet had been assisted in his 
strangling, just as they had put Picot's feet to the fire. 
What gave colour to these suspicions was the fact 
that Bouvet's hands " were horribly swollen " when 
he appeared before Real the next day, and also the 
strange form of the declaration which he was reputed 
to have dictated at midnight, just as he was restored 
to life. " A man who comes from the gates of the 
tomb, still covered with the shadows of death, de- 
mands vengeance on those who, by their perfidy," 
etc. Many were agreed in thinking that that was 
not the style of a suicide, with the death-rattle still in 
his throat, but that Real's agents must have lent their 
eloquence to this half-dead creature. 

However it may have been, the government now 
knew enough to order the most rigorous measures to 
be taken against the " last royalists." Bouvet had, 
like Picot, only been able to mention the house at 
Chaillot, and the lodging in the Rue Careme-Prenant, 
and Georges' retreat was still undiscovered. The 
revelations that fear or torture had drawn from his 
associates only served to make the figure of this ex- 
traordinary man loom greater, by showing the power 
of his ascendancy over his companions, and the mys- 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 29 

tery that surrounded all his actions. A legend grew 
around his name, and the communications published 
by Le Moniteur^ contributed not a little towards 
making him a sort of fantastic personage, whom one 
expected to see arise suddenly, and by one grand the- 
atrical stroke put an end to the Revolution. 

Paris lived in a fever of excitement during the first 
days of March, 1804, anxiously following this duel to 
the death, between the First Consul and this phantom- 
man who, shut up in the town and constantly seen 
about, still remained uncaught. The barriers were 
closed as in the darkest days of the Terror. Patrols, 
detectives and gendarmes held all the streets ; the sol- 
diers of the garrison had departed, with loaded arms, 
to the boulevards outside the walls. White placards 
announced that " Those who concealed the brigands 
would be classed with the brigands themselves " ; the 
penalty of death attached to any one who should 
shelter one of them, even for twenty-four hours, 
without denouncing him to the police. The descrip- 
tion of Georges and his accomplices was inserted in 
all the papers, distributed in leaflets, and posted on 
the walls. Their last domicile was mentioned, as 
well as anything that could help to identify them. 
The clerks at the barriers were ordered to search 
barrels, washerwomen's carts, baskets, and, as the 
cemeteries were outside the walls, to look carefully 
into all the hearses that carried the dead to them. 

On leaving Chaillot, Georges had returned to Ver- 
det, in the Rue du Puits-de-rHermite. As he did 



30 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

not go out and his friends dared not come to see him, 
Mme. Verdet had instituted herself commissioner for 
the conspiracy. 

One evening she did not return. Armed with a 
letter for Bouvet de Lozier, she had arrived at the 
Rue Saint-Sauveur just as they were taking him to 
the Temple, and had been arrested with him. Thus 
the circle was narrowing around Georges. He was 
obliged to leave the Rue du Puits-de-1'Hermite in 
haste, for fear that torture would wring the secret of 
his asylum from Mme. Verdet. But where could he 
go ? The house at Chaillot, the Hotel of the Cloche 
d'Or, the Rue Careme-Prenant were now known to 
the police. Charles d'Hozier, on being consulted, 
showed him a retreat that he had kept for himself, 
which had been arranged for him by Mile. Hisay, a 
poor deformed girl, who served the conspirators with 
tireless zeal, taking all sorts of disguises and vying in 
address and activity with Real's men. She had rented 
from a fruitseller named Lemoine, a little shop with a 
room above it, intending " to use it for some of her 
acquaintances." 

It was there that she conducted Georges on the 
night of February 17. The next day two of his 
officers, Burban and Joyaut, joined him there, and all 
three lived at the woman Lemoine's for twenty days. 
They occupied the room above, leaving the shop un- 
tenanted save by Mile. Hisay and a little girl of Le- 
moine's, who kept watch there. At night both of 
them went up to the room, and slept there, separated 
by a curtain from the beds occupied by Georges and 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 31 

his accomplices. The fruiterer and her daughter 
were entirely ignorant of the standing of their guests, 
Mile. Hisay having introduced them as three shop- 
keepers who were unfortunately obliged to hide from 
their creditors. 

This incognito occasioned some rather amusing in- 
cidents. One day Mme. Lemoine, on returning from 
market where the neighbours had been discussing the 
plot that was agitating all Paris, said to her tenants, 
" Goodness me ! You don't know about it ? Why, 
they say that that miserable Georges would like to 
destroy us all ; if I knew where he was, I'd soon have 
him caught." 

Another time the little girl brought news that 
Georges had left Paris disguised as an aide-de-camp 
of the First Consul. Some days later, when Georges 
asked her what the latest news was, she answered, 
" They say the rascal has escaped in a coffin." 

"I should like to go out the same way," hinted 
Burban. 

However, the police had lost track of the con- 
spirator. It was generally supposed that he had 
passed the fortifications, when on the 8th of March, 
Petit, who had known Leridant, one of the Chouans, 
for a long time, saw him talking w.ith a woman on 
the Boulevard Saint-Antoine. He followed him, and 
a little further ofF, saw him go up to a man who 
struck him as bearing a great likeness to Joyaut, 
whose description had been posted on all the walls. 

It was indeed Joyaut, who had left Mme. Le- 
moine's for the purpose of looking for a lodging for 



32 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Georges where he would be less at the mercy of 
chance than in the fruitseller's attic. Leridant told 
him that the house of a perfumer named Caron, in 
the Rue Four-Saint-Germain, was the safest retreat 
in Paris. For some years Caron, a militant royalist, 
had sheltered distressed Chouans, in the face of the 
police. He had hidden Hyde de Neuville for several 
weeks ; his house was well provided with secret 
places, and for extreme cases he had made a place in 
his sign-post overhanging the street, where a man 
could lie perdu at ease, while the house was being 
searched. Leridant had obtained Caron's consent, 
and it was agreed that Leridant should come in a cab 
at seven o'clock the next evening to take Georges 
from Sainte-Genevieve to the Rue du Four. 

When he had seen the termination of the interview 
of which his detective's instinct showed him the im- 
portance. Petit, who had remained at a distance, fol- 
lowed Joyaut, and did not lose sight of him till he ar- 
rived at the Place Adaubert. Suspecting that Georges 
was in the neighbourhood he posted policemen at the 
Place du Pantheon, and at the narrow streets leading 
to it; then he returned to watch Leridant, who 
lodged with a young man called Goujon, in the cul- 
de-sac of the Corderie, behind the old Jacobins Club. 
The next day, March 9th, Petit learned through his 
spies that Goujon had hired out a cab. No. 53, for 
the entire day. He hastened to the Prefecture and 
informed his colleague, Destavigny, who, with a 
party of inspectors took up his position on the Place 
Maubert. If, as Petit supposed, Georges was hidden 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 33 

near there, if the cab was intended for him, it would 
be obliged to cross the place where the principal 
streets of the quarter converged. The order was 
given to let it pass if it contained only one person, 
but to follow it with most extreme care. 

The night had arrived, and nothing had happened to 
confirm the hypotheses of Petit, when, a little before 
seven o'clock, a cab appeared on the Place, coming 
from the Rue Galande. Only one man was on it, 
holding the reins. The spies in different costumes, 
who hung about the fountain, recognised him as Leri- 
dant. The cab was numbered 53, and had only the 
lantern at the left alight. It went slowly up the steep 
Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve ; the police, 
hugging the walls, followed it far ofF. Petit, the In- 
spector Caniolle, and the officer of the peace, Des- 
tavigny, kept nearer to it, expecting to see it stop 
before one of the houses in the street, when they 
would only have to take Georges on the threshold. 
But to their great disappointment the cab turned to 
the right, into the narrow Rue des Amandiers, and 
stopped at a porte cochere near the old College des 
Grassins. As the lantern shed a very brilliant light, 
the three detectives concealed themselves in the lanes 
near by. They saw Leridant descend from the cab. 
He went through a door, came out, went in again and 
stayed for a quarter of an hour. Then he turned his 
horse round, and got up on the seat again. 

The cab turned again into the Rue de la Montague- 
Sainte-Genevieve, and went slowly down it ; it went 
across the Place Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, following the 



34 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

houses. Caniolle walked behind it, Petit and Desta- 
vigny followed at a distance. Just as the carriage 
arrived at the corner of the Rue des Sept-Voies, four 
individuals came out from the shadow. One of them 
seized the apron, and helping himself up by the step, 
flung himself into the cab, which had not stopped, and 
went off at full speed. . . 

The police had recognised Georges, disguised as a 
market-porter. Caniolle, who was nearest, rushed 
forward ; the three men who had remained on the 
spot, and who were no other than Joyaut, Durban and 
Raoul Gaillard, tried to stop him. Caniolle threw 
them off, and chased the cab which had disappeared in 
the Rue Saint-Etienne-des-Gres. He caught up to 
it, just as it was entering the Passage des Jacobins. 
Seizing the springs, he was carried along with it. 
The two officers of the peace, less agile, followed 
crying, " Stop ! Stop ! " 

Georges, seated on the right of Leridant, who held 
the reins, had turned to the back of the carriage and 
tried to follow the fortunes of the pursuit through the 
glass. The moment that he had jumped into the car- 
riage, he had seen the detectives, and said to Leridant : 
" Whip him, whip him hard ! '* 

" To go where ? " asked the other. 

" I do not know, but we must fly ! " 

And the horse, tingling with blows, galloped ofF. 

At the end of the Passage des Jacobins, which at a 
sharp angle ended in the Rue de la Harpe, Leridant 
was obliged to slow up in order to turn on the Place 
Saint-Michel, and not miss the entrance to the Rue 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 35 

des Fosses-Monsieur-le-Prince. He turned towards 
the Rue du Four, hoping, thanks to the steepness of 
the Rue des Fosses, to distance the detectives and 
arrive at Caron's before they caught up v^^ith the car- 
riage. 

From where he was Georges could not, through the 
little window, see Caniolle crouched behind the hood. 
But he saw others running with all their might. 
Destavigny and Petit had indeed continued the pur- 
suit, and their cries brought out all the spies posted in 
the quarter. Just as Leridant wildly dashed into the 
Rue des Fosses, a whole pack of policemen rushed 
upon him. 

At the approach of this whirlwind the frightened 
passers-by shrank into the shelter of the doorways. 
Their minds were so haunted by one idea that at the 
sight of this cab flying past in the dark with the noise 
of whips, shouts, oaths, and the resonant clang of the 
horse's hoofs on the pavement, a single cry broke 
forth, " Georges ! Georges ! it is Georges ! " Anx- 
ious faces appeared at the windows, and from every 
door people came out, who began to run without 
knowing it, drawn along as by a waterspout. Did 
Georges see in this a last hope of safety ? Did he 
believe he could escape in the crowd ? However that 
may be, at the top of the Rue Voltaire he jumped out 
into the street. Caniolle, at the same moment, left 
the back of the cab— which Petit, and another police- 
man called Buffet, had at last succeeded in outrun- 
ning, — threw himself on the reins, and allowing him- 
self to be dragged along, mastered the horse, which 



36 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

stopped, exhausted. Buffet took one step towards 
Georges, who stretched him dead with a pistol shot ; 
with a second ball the Chouan rid himself, for a mo- 
ment at least, of Caniolle. He still thought, proba- 
bly, that he could hide himself in the crowd ; and 
perhaps he would have succeeded, for Destavigny, 
who had run up, " saw him before him, standing with 
all the tranquillity of a man who has nothing to fear, 
and three or four people near him appeared not to be 
thinking more about Georges than anything else." 
He was going to turn the corner of the Rue de 
rObservance when Caniolle, who was only wounded, 
struck him with his club. In an instant Georges was 
surrounded, thrown down, searched and bound. The 
next morning more than forty individuals, among 
them several women, made themselves known to the 
judge as being each " the principal author " of the 
arrest of the " brigand " chief. 

By way of the Carrefour de la Comedie, the Rues 
des Fosses Saint-Germain and Dauphine, Georges, 
tied with cords, was taken to the Prefecture. A 
growing mob escorted him, more out of curiosity 
than anger, and one can imagine the excitement at 
police headquarters when they heard far off on the 
Quai des Orf evres, the increasing tumult announcing 
the event, and when suddenly, from the corps de 
garde in the salons of the Prefect Dubois the news 
came, " Georges is taken ! '* 

A minute later the vanquished outlaw was pushed 
into the office of Dubois, who was still at dinner. In 
spite of his bonds he still showed so much pride and 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 37 

coolness that the all-powerful functionary was almost 
afraid of him. Desmaret, who was present, could 
not himself escape this feeling. 

" Georges, whom I saw for the first time," he 
said, " had always been to me a sort of Old Man of 
the Mountain, sending his assassins far and near, 
against the powers. I found, on the contrary, an 
open face, bright eyes, fresh complexion, and a look 
firm but gentle, as was also his voice. Although 
stout, his movements and manner were easy ; his 
head quite round, with short curly hair, no whiskers, 
and nothing to indicate the chief of a mortal con- 
spiracy, who had long dominated the landes of Brittany. 
I was present when Comte Dubois, the prefect of 
police, questioned him. His ease amidst all the hub- 
bub, his answers, firm, frank, cautious and couched 
in well-chosen language, contrasted greatly with my 
ideas about him. s 

" Indeed his first replies showed a disconcerting 
calm. One may be quoted. When Dubois, not 
knowing where to begin, rather foolishly reproached 
him with the death of Buffet, ' the father of a family,' 
Georges smilingly gave him this advice : — ' Next 
time, then, have me arrested by bachelors.' " 

His courageous pride did not fail him either in the 
interrogations he had to submit to, or before the court 
of justice. His replies to the President are superb in 
disdain and abnegation. He assumed all responsibility 
for the plot, and denied knowledge of any of his 
friends. He carried his generosity so far as to behave 
with courteous dignity even to those who had be- 



38 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

trayed him ; he even tried to excuse the indifference 
of the princes whose selfish inertia had been his 
ruin. He remained great until he reached the scaf- 
fold ; eleven faithful Chouans died v^ith him, among 
the number being Louis Picot, Joyaut and Durban, 
whose names have appeared in this story. 

Thus ended the conspiracy. Bonaparte came out 
of it emperor. Fouche, minister of police, and his 
assistants were not going to be useless, for if in the 
eyes of the public, Georges' death seemed the climax, 
it was in reality but one incident in a desperate 
struggle. The depths sounded by the investigation 
had revealed the existence of an incurable evil. The 
whole west of France was cankered with Chouan- 
nerie. From Rouen to Nantes, from Cherbourg to 
Poitiers, thousands of peasants, bourgeois and country 
gentlemen remained faithful to the old order, and if 
they were not all willing to take up arms in its cause, 
they could at least do much to upset the equilibrium 
of the new government. And could not another try 
to do what Georges Cadoudal had attempted ? If 
some one with more influence over the princes than 
he possessed should persuade one of them to cross the 
Channel, what would the glory of the parvenu count 
for, balanced against the ancient prestige of the name 
of Bourbon, magnified and as it were sanctified by the 
tragedies of the Revolution ? This fear haunted 
Bonaparte ; the knowledge that in France these Bour- 
bons, exiled, without soldiers or money, were still 
more the masters then he, exasperated him. He felt 
that he was in their home, and their nonchalance, 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 39 

contrasted with his incessant agitation, indicated both 
insolence and disdain. 

The police, as a matter of fact, had unearthed only 
a few of the conspirators. Many who, like Raoul 
Gaillard, had played an important part in the plot, 
had succeeded in escaping all pursuit ; they were evi- 
dently the cleverest, therefore the most dangerous, 
and among them might be found a man ambitious of 
succeeding Cadoudal. The capture to which Fouche 
and Real attached the most importance was that 
of d'Ache, whose presence at Biville and Saint-Leu 
had been proved. For three months, in Paris even, 
wherever the police had worked, they had struck the 
trail of this same d'Ache, who appeared to have pre- 
sided over the whole organisation of the plot. Thus, 
he had been seen at Verdet's in the Rue du Puits-de- 
I'Hermite, while Georges was there ; he had met 
Raoul Gaillard several times ; in making an Inventory 
of the papers of a young lady called Margeot, with 
whom Pichegru had dined, two rather enigmatical 
notes had been found, in which d' Ache's name ap- 
peared. 

Mme. d'Ache and her eldest daughter had been since 
February in the Madelonnettes prison; the second 
girl, Alexandrine, had been left at liberty in the hope 
that in Paris, where she was a stranger, she would be 
guilty of some imprudence that would deliver her 
father to the police. She had taken lodgings In the 
Rue Travcrslere-Saint-Honore, at the Hotel des 
Treize-Cantons, and Real had Immediately set two 
spies upon her, but their reports were monotonously 



40 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

melancholy. " Very well behaved, very quiet — she 
lives, and is daily with the master and mistress of the 
hotel, people of mature age. She sees no one, and is 
spoken of in the highest terms." From this side, 
also, all hope of catching d'Ache had to be abandoned. 

Another way was thought of, and on March 2 2d 
the order to open all the gates was given. Fouche 
foresaw that in their anxiety to leave Paris all of 
Georges' accomplices who had not been caught would 
hasten to return to Normandy, and thanks to the 
watchfulness exercised, a clean sweep might be made 
of them. The cleverly conceived idea had some 
result. On the 25th a peasant called Jacques Pluquet 
of Meriel, near I'Isle-Adam, when working in his 
field on the border of the wood of La Muette, saw 
four men in hats pulled down over cotton caps, and 
with strong knotted clubs, coming towards him. 
They asked him if they could cross the Oise at 
Meriel. Pluquet replied that it was easy to do so, 
" but there were gendarmes to examine all who 
passed." At that they hesitated. They described 
themselves as conscript deserters coming from Valen- 
ciennes who Vv^ished to get back to their homes. 
Pluquet's account is so picturesque as to be worth 
quoting : 

" I asked them where they belonged ; they replied 
in Alen^on. I remarked that they would have 
trouble in getting there without being arrested. One 
of them said: 'That is true, for after what had just 
happened in Paris, everywhere is guarded.' Then, 
allowing the three others to go on ahead, he said to 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 41 

me, ' But if they arrest us, what will they do to us ? * 
I replied : ' They will take you back to your corps, 
from brigade to brigade.* On that he said, 'If they 
catch us, they will make us do ten thousand leagues.* 
And he left me to regain his comrades, the youngest 
of whom might have been twenty-two years old and 
seemed very sad and tired." 

The next morning some people at Auvers found a 
little log cabin in a wood in which the four men had 
spent the night. They were seen on the following 
days, wandering in the forest of l*Isle-Adam. At 
last, on April ist they went to the ferryman of Mer- 
iel, Eloi Cousin, who was sheltering two gendarmes. 
While they were begging the ferryman to take them 
in his boat, the gendarmes appeared, and the men 
fled. A pistol shot struck one of them, and a second, 
who stopped to assist his comrade, was also taken. 
The two others escaped to the woods. 

The wounded man was put in a boat and taken to 
the hospital at Pontoise, where he died the next day. 
Real, who was immediately informed of it, immedi- 
ately sent Querelle, whom he was carefully keeping 
in prison to use in case of need, and he at once recog- 
nised the corpse to be that of Raoul Gaillard, called 
Houvel, or Saint-Vincent, the friend of d'Ache, the 
principal advance-agent of Georges. The other 
prisoner was his brother Armand, who was immedi- 
ately taken to Paris and thrown into the Temple. 

The commune of Meriel had deserved well of the 
country, and the First Consul showed his satisfaction 
in a dazzling manner. He expressed a desire to 



42 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

make the acquaintance of this population so devoted 
to his person, and on the 8th of April, the sous-prefet 
of Pontoise presented himself at the Tuileries at the 
head of all the men of the village. Bonaparte con- 
gratulated them personally, and as a more substantial 
proof of his gratitude, distributed among them a sum 
of 11,000 francs, found in Raoul Gaillard's belt. 

This was certainly a glorious event for the peasants 
of Meriel, but it had an unexpected result. When 
they returned the next day they learned that a 
stranger, " well dressed, well armed and mounted on 
a fine horse," profiting by their absence, had gone to 
the village, and, " after many questions addressed to 
the women and children, had gone to the place where 
Raoul Gaillard was wounded, trying to find out if 
they had not found a case, to which he seemed to at- 
tach great importance." This incident reminded 
them that, in the boat that took him to Pontoise, 
Raoul Gaillard, then dying, had anxiously asked if a 
razor-case had been found among his things. On re- 
ceiving a negative reply, " he had appeared to be very 
much put out, and was heard to murmur that the 
fortune of the man who would discover this case was 
made." 

The visits of this stranger — since seen, " in the 
country, on the heights and near the woods," — his 
threats of vengeance, and this mysterious case, pro- 
vided matter for a report that perplexed Real. Was 
this not d*Ache ? A great hunt was organised in the 
forest of Carnelle, but it brought no result. Four 
days later they explored the forest of Montmorency, 



CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL 43 

where some signs of the " brigands' '' occupation 
were seen, but of d'Ache no trace at all, and in spite 
of the fierceness that Real's men, incited by the 
promise of large rewards, brought to this chase of the 
Chouans, after weeks and months of research, of en- 
quiries, tricks, false trails followed, and traps use- 
lessly laid, it had to be admitted that the police had 
lost the scent, and that Georges' clever accomplice 
had long since disappeared. 



CHAPTER III 

THE COMBRAYS 

At the period of our story there existed in the de- 
partment of the Eure, on the left bank of the Seine, 
beyond Gaillon, a large old manor-house, backed by 
the hill that extended as far as Andelys ; it was called 
the Chateau de Tournebut. Although its peaked 
roofs could be seen from the river above a thicket of 
lovtr trees, Tournebut was off the main route of travel, 
whether by land or water, from Rouen to Paris. 
Some fairly large woods separated it from the high- 
road which runs from Gaillon to Saint-Cyr-de-Vaud- 
reuil, while the barges usually touched at the hamlet 
of Roule, where hacks were hired to take passengers 
and goods to the ferry of Muids, thereby saving them 
the long detour made by the Seine. Tournebut was 
thus isolated between these two much-travelled roads. 
Its principal facade, facing east, towards the river, 
consisted of two heavy turrets, one against the other, 
built of brick and stone in the style of Louis XIII, 
with great slate roofs and high dormer windows. 
After these came a lower and more modern building, 
ending with the chapel. In front of the chateau 
was an old square bastion forming a terrace, whose 
mossy walls were bathed by the waters of a large 
stagnant marsh. The west front which was plainer, 

44 



THE COMBRAYS 45 

was separated by only a few feet of level ground from 
the abrupt, wooded hill by which Tournebut was 
sheltered. A wall with several doors opening on the 
woods enclosed the chateau, the farm and the lower 
part of the park, and a wide morass, stretching from 
the foot of the terrace to the Seine, rendered access 
impossible from that side. 

By the marriage of Genevieve de Bois-l'Eveque, 
Lady of Tournebut, this mansion had passed to the 
family of Marillac, early in the seventeenth century. 
The Marshal Louis de Marillac — uncle of Mme. 
Legras, collaborator of St, Vincent de Paul — had 
owned it from 1613 to 1631, and tradition asserted 
that during his struggle against Cardinal Richelieu he 
had established there a plant for counterfeiting money. 
To him was due the construction of the brick wing 
which remained unfinished, his condemnation to death 
for peculation having put a stop to the embellishments 
he had intended to make. 

There are very few chateaux left in France like 
this romantic manor of a dead and gone past, whose 
stones have endured all the crises of our history, and 
to which each century has added a tower, or a legend. 
Tournebut, at the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, was a perfect type of these old dwellings, where 
there were so many great halls and so few living 
rooms, and whose high slate roofs covered intricacies 
of framework forming lofts vast as cathedrals. It 
was said that its thick walls were pierced by secret 
passages and contained hiding-places that Louis de 
Marillac had formerly used. . 



\^ 



46 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

In 1804 Tournebut was inhabited by the Marquise 
de Combray, born Genevieve de Brunelles, daughter 
of a President of the Cour des Comptes of Nor- 
mandy. Her husband, Jean-Louis-Armand-Em- 
manuel Helie de Combray, had died in 1784, 
leaving her vi^ith two sons and two daughters, and a 
great deal of property in the environs of Falaise, in 
the parishes of Donnay, Combray, Bonnceil and 
other places. Madame de Combray had inherited 
Tournebut from her mother, Madeleine Hubert, her- 
self a daughter of a councillor in the Paraliament of 
Normandy. Besides the chateau and the farm, which 
were surrounded by a park well-wooded with old 
trees, the domain included the woods that covered the 
hillside, at the extremity of which was an old tower, 
formerly a wind-mill, built over deep quarries, and 
called the " Tower of the Burned Mill," or " The 
Hermitage." It figures in the ancient plans of the 
country under the latter name, which it owes to the 
memory of an old hermit who lived in the quarries 
for many years and died there towards the close of 
the reign of Louis XV, leaving a great local reputa- 
tion for holiness. 

Mme. de Combray was of a "haughty and im- 
perious nature ; her soul was strong and full of 
energy ; she knew how to brave danger and public 
opinion ; the boldest projects did not frighten her, and 
her ambition was unbounded." Such is the picture 
that one of her most irreconcilable enemies has drawn 
of her, and we shall see that the principal traits were 
faithfully described. But to complete the resemblance 



THE COM BRAYS 47 

one must first of all plead an extenuating circum- 
stance : Madame de Combray was a fanatical royalist. ^ 
Even that, however, would not make her story intel- 
ligible, if one did not make allowance for the Calvary 
that the faithful royalists travelled through so many 
years, each station of which was marked by disillu- 
sions and failures. Since the war on the nobles had 
begun in 1789, all their efforts at resistance,' disdainful 
at first, stubborn later on, blundering always, had been 
pitifully abortive. Their rebuffs could no longer be 
counted, and there was some justification in that for 
the scornful hatred on the part of the new order to- 
wards a caste which for so many centuries had be- 
lieved themselves to be possessed of all the talents. 
Many of them, it is true, had resigned themselves to 
defeat, but the Intransigeants continued to struggle 
obstinately ; and to say truth, this tenacious attach- 
ment to the ghost of monarchy was not without 
grandeur. 

From the very beginning of the Revolution the 
Marquise de Combray had numbered herself among 
the unchangeable royalists. Her husband, a timorous 
and quiet man, who employed in reading the hours 
that he did not consecrate to sleep, had long since 
abandoned to her the direction of the household and 
the management of his fortune. Widowhood had 
but strengthened the authority of the Marquise, who 
reigned over a little world of small farmers, peasants 
and servants, more timid, perhaps, than devoted. 

She exacted complete obedience from her children. 
The eldest son, called the Chevalier de Bonnoeil, after 



48 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

a property near the Chateau of Donnay, in the 
environs of Falaise, supported the maternal yoke 
patiently ; he was an officer in the Royal Dragoons 
at the time of the Revolution. His younger brother, 
Timoleon de Combray, w^as of a less docile nature. 
On leaving the military school, as his father vi^as just 
dead he solicited from M. de Vergennes a mission in 
an uncivilised country and set sail for Morocco. 
Timoleon w?ls a liberal-minded man, of high intel- 
lectual culture, and a philosophical scepticism that 
fitted ill vi^ith the Marquise's authoritative temper; 
although a devoted and respectful man, it wsls to get 
away from his mother's tutelage that he expatriated 
himself. " Our diversity of opinion," he said later 
on, " has kept me from spending two consecutive 
months with her in seventeen years." From Morocco 
he went to Algiers and thence to Tunis and Egypt. 
He was about to penetrate to Tartary when he heard 
of the outbreak of the Revolution ; and immediately 
started for France where he arrived at the beginning 
of 1791. 

Of Mme. de Combray's two daughters the eldest 
had married, in 1787, at the age of twenty-two, 
Jacques-Philippe-Henri d'Houel ; the youngest Caro- 
line-Madeleine-Louise-Genevieve, was born in 1773, 
and consequently was only eleven years old when her 
father died. This child is the heroine of the drama 
we are about to relate. 

In August, 1 79 1, Mme. de Combray inscribed her- 
self and her two sons on the list of the hostages of 
Louis XVI which the journalist Durosay had con- 



THE COMBRAYS 49 

ceived. It was a courageous act, for it was easy to 
foresee that the six hundred and eleven names on 
"this golden book of fidelity," would soon all be sus- 
pected. While hope remained for the monarchy the 
two brothers struggled bravely. Timoleon stayed 
near the King till August 10, and only went to Eng- 
land after he had taken part in the defence of the 
Tuileries ; Bonnoeil had emigrated the preceding 
year, and served in the army of the Princes. Mme. 
de Comb ray, left alone with her two daughters — the 
husband of the elder had also emigrated, — left 
Tournebut in 1793, and settled in Rouen, where, al- 
though she owned much real estate in the town, she 
rented in the Rue de Valasse, Faubourg Bouvreuil, 
" an isolated, unnumbered house, with an entrance 
towards the country." She gave her desire to finish 
the education of her younger daughter who was en- 
tering her twentieth year as a reason for her retreat. 

Caroline de Combray was very small, — " as large 
as a dog sitting," they said, — bufcharming ; her com- 
plexion was delicately pure, her black hair of extra- 
ordinary length and abundance. She was loving and 
sensible, very romantic, full of frankness and vivacity ; 
the great attraction of her small person was the result 
of a piquant combination of energy and gentleness. 
She had been brought up in the convent of the 
Nouvelles Catholiques de Caen, where she stayed six 
years, receiving lessons from " masteVs of all sorts of 
accomplishments, and of different languages." She 
was a musician and played the harp, and as soon as 
they were settled in Rouen her mother engaged 



50 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Boieldieu as her accompanist, " to whom she long 
paid six silver francs per lesson," a sum that seemed 
fabulous in that period of paper-money, and territorial 
mandates. 

Madame de Combray, besides, was much straight- 
ened. As both her sons had emigrated, all the prop- 
erty that they inherited from their father was 
sequestrated. Of the income of 50,000 francs 
possessed by the family before the Revolution, 
scarcely fifty remained at her disposal, and she had 
been obliged to borrow to sustain the heavy expenses 
of her house in Rouen. 

Besides her two daughters and the servants, she 
housed half a dozen nuns and two or three Chartreux, 
among them a recusant friar called Lemercier, who 
soon gained great influence in the household. By 
reason of his refractoriness Pere Lemercier was 
doomed, if discovered, to death, or at least to deporta- 
tion, and it will be understood that he sympathised 
but feebly with the Revolution that consigned him, 
against his will, to martyrdom. He called down the 
vengeance of heaven on the miscreants, and not dar- 
ing to show himself, with unquenchable ardour 
preached the holy crusade to the women who sur- 
rounded him. 

Mme. de Combray's royalist enthusiasm did not 
need this inspiration; a wise man would have coun- 
selled resignation, or at least patience, but unhappily, 
she was surrounded only by those whose fanaticism 
encouraged and excused her own. Enthusiastic 
frenzy had become the habitual state of these people. 



THE COMBRAYS 51 

whose overheated imaginations were nourished on 
legendary tales, and foolish hopes of imminent re- 
prisals. They welcomed with unfailing credulity the 
wildest prophecies, announcing terrible impending 
massacres, to which the miraculous return of the 
Bourbon lilies would put an end, and as illusions of 
this kind are strengthened by their own deceptions, 
the house in the Rue de Valasse soon heard myste- 
rious voices, and became the scene " of celestial ap- 
paritions," which, on the invitation of Pere Lemercier 
predicted the approaching destruction of the blues 
and the restoration of the monarchy. 

On a certain day in the summer of 1795, a 
stranger presented himself to Pere Lemercier, armed 
with a password, and a very warm recommendation 
from a refractory priest, who was in hiding at Caen. 
He was a Chouan chief, bearing the name and title of 
General Lebret; of medium stature, with red hair 
and beard, and cold steel-coloured eyes. Introduced 
to Mme. de Combray by Lemercier, he admitted that 
his real name was Louis Acquet d'Hauteporte, Chev- 
alier de Ferolles. He had come to Rouen, he said, to 
transmit the orders of the Princes to Mallet de Cre^y, 
who commanded for the King in Upper Normandy. 

We can judge of the welcome the Chevalier re- 
ceived. Mme. de Combray, her daughters, the nuns 
and the Chartreux friars used all their ingenuity to 
satisfy the slightest wish of this man, who modestly 
called himself "the agent general of His Majesty." 
They arranged a hiding-place for him in the safest 
part of the house, and Pere Lemercier blessed it. 



52 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Acquet stayed there part of the day, and in the even- 
ing joined in the usual pursuits of the household, and 
related the story of his adventures by way of enter- 
tainment. 

According to him, he possessed large estates in the 
environs of the Sables-d'Olonne, of which place he 
was a native. An officer in the regiment of Brie 
infantry before the Revolution, being at Lille in 1791 
he had taken advantage of his nearness to the frontier 
to incite his regiment to insurrection and emigrate to 
Belgium. He had then put himself at the disposal of 
the Princes, and had enlisted men for the royal army 
in Vendee, Poitou and Normandy, helping priests to 
emigrate, and saving whole villages from the fury of 
the blues. He named Charette, Frotte and Puisaye 
as his most intimate friends, and these names recalled 
the chivalrous times of the wars in the west in which 
he had taken a glorious part. Sometimes he disap- 
peared for several days, and on his return from these 
mysterious absences, would let it be known that he 
had just accomplished some great deed, or brought a 
dangerous mission to a successful termination. In 
this way the Chevalier Acquet de Ferolles had be- 
come the idol of the little group of naive royalists 
among whom he had found refuge. He had bravely 
served the cause ; he plumed himself on having mer- 
ited the surname of " toutou of the Princes," and in 
Mme. de Combray's dazzled eyes this was equal to 
any number of references. 

Acquet was in reality an adventurer. If we were 
to take account here of all the evil deeds he is cred- 



THE COMBRAYS 53 

ited with, we should be suspected of wantonly black- 
ening the character of this melodramatic figure. A 
few facts gathered by the Combrays will serve to 
describe him. As an officer at Lille he was about to 
be imprisoned as the result of an odious accusation, 
but deserted and escaped to Belgium, not daring to 
join the army of the emigres. He stopped at Mons, 
then went to the west of France, and became a 
Chouan, but politics had nothing to do v/ith this act. 
He associated himself with some bravos of his stripe 
and plundered travellers, and levied contributions on 
the purchasers of national property. In the Eure, 
where he usually pursued his operations, he assassin- 
ated with his own hand two defenceless gamekeep- 
ers whom his little band had encountered. 

He delighted in taking the funds of the country 
school-teachers, and to give a colour of royalism to 
the deed, he would nightly tear down the trees of 
liberty in the villages in which he operated. Tired 
at last of " an occupation where there was nothing 
but blows to receive, and his head to lose," he went 
to seek his fortune in Rouen ; and before he presented 
himself to Mme. de Combray, had without doubt 
made enquiries. He knew he would find a rich 
heiress, whose two brothers, emigrated, would prob- 
ably never return, and from the first he set to work to 
flatter the royalist hobby of the mother, and the 
romantic imagination of the young girl. Pere 
Lemercier was himself conquered; Acquet, to catch 
him, pretended the greatest piety and most scrupulous 
devotion. 



54 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

A note of Bonnoeil's informs us of the way this 
tragic intrigue ended. " Acquet employed every 
means of seduction to attain his end. The young 
girl, fearing to remain long unmarried because of the 
unhappy times, listened to him, in spite of the many 
reasons for waiting and for refusing the proposals of 
a man whose name, country and fortune were un- 
known to them. The mother's advice was unfortu- 
nately not heeded, and she found herself obliged to 
consent to the marriage, the laws of that period giv- 
ing the daughters full liberty, and authorising them to 
shake off the salutary parental yoke." 

The dates of certain papers complete the discreet 
periphrases of Bonnoeil. The truth is that Acquet 
" declared his passion " to Mile, de Combray and as 
she, a little doubtful though well-disposed to allow 
herself to be loved, still hesitated, the Chevalier 
signed a sort of mystic engagement dated January i, 
1796, where, "in sight of the Holy Church and at 
the pleasure of God," he pledged himself to marry 
her on demand. She carefully locked up this precious 
paper, and a little less than ten months later, the 17th 
October, the municipal agent of Aubevoye, in which 
is situated the Chateau of Tournebut, inscribed the 
birth of a daughter, born to the citizeness Louise- 
Charlotte de Combray, " wife of the citizen Louis 
Acquet." Here, then, is the reason that the Mar- 
quise " found herself obliged to consent to the mar- 
riage," which did not take place until the following 
year, mention of it not being made in the registry of 
Rouen until the date 17th June, 1797. 



THE COMBRAYS 55 

Acquet had thus attained his wish ; he had seduced 
Mile, de Combray to make the marriage inevitable, 
and this accomplished, under pretext of preventing 
their sale, he caused the estates of the Combrays 
situated at Donnay near Falaise, and sequestrated by 
the emigration of Bonnoeil, to be conveyed to him. 
Scarcely was this done when he began to pillage the 
property, turning everything into money, cutting 
down woods, and sparing neither thickets nor hedges. 
" The domain of Donnay became a sort of desert in 
his hands." Stopped in his depredations by a com- 
plaint of his two brothers-in-law he tried to attack the 
will of the Marquis de Combray, pretending that his 
wife, a minor at the time of her father's death, had 
been injured in the division of property. This was 
to declare open war on the family he had entered, and 
to compel his wife to espouse his cause he beat her 
unmercifully. A second daughter was born of this 
unhappy union, and even the children did not escape 
the brutality of their father. A note on this subject, 
written by Mme. Acquet, is of heart-breaking 
eloquence : 

" M. Acquet beat the children cruelly every day ; 
he ill-treated me also unceasingly : he often chastised 
them with sticks, which he always used when he 
made the children read; they were continually black 
and blue with the blows they received. He gave me 
such a severe blow one day that blood gushed from 
my nose and mouth, and I was unconscious for some 
moments. ... He went to get his pistols to 
blow out my brains, which he would certainly have 



56 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

done if people had not been present. . , . He 
was always armed with a dagger.'* 

In January, 1804, Mme. Acquet resolved to escape 
from this hell. Profiting by her husband's absence in 
La Vendee she wrote to him that she refused to live 
with him longer, and hastened to Falaise to ask a 
shelter from her brother Timoleon, who had lately 
returned to France. Timoleon, in order to prevent a 
scandal, persuaded his sister to return to her husband's 
house. She took this wise advice, but refused to see 
M. Acquet, who, returning in haste and finding her 
barricaded in the chateau, called the justice of the 
peace of the canton of Harcourt, aided by his clerk 
and two gendarmes, to witness that his wife refused 
to receive him. Having, one fine morning, " found 
her desk forced and all her papers taken," she re- 
turned to Falaise, obtained a judgment authorising 
her to live with her brother, and lodged a petition for 
separation. 

Things were at this point when the trial of Georges 
Cadoudal was in progress. Acquet, exasperated at the 
resistance to his projects, swore that he would have 
signal vengeance on his wife and all the Combrays. 
They were, unhappily, to give his hatred too good an 
opportunity of showing itself. 

After passing three years in Rouen, Mme. de Com- 
bray returned to Tournebut in the spring of 1796, 
with her royalist passions and illusions as strong as 
ever. She had declared war on the Revolution, and 
believed that victory was assured at no distant period. 
It is a not uncommon effect of political passion to 



THE COMBRAYS 57 

blind its subjects to the point of believing that their 
desires and hopes are imminent realities. Mme. de 
Combray anticipated the return of the King so im- 
patiently that one of her reasons for returning to the 
chateau was to prepare apartments for the Princes and 
their suite in case the debarkation should take place 
on the coast of Normandy. Once before, in 1792, 
Gaillon had been designated as a stopping-place for 
Louis XVI in case he should again make the attempt 
that had been frustrated at Varennes. The Chateau 
de Gaillon was no longer habitable in 1796, but 
Tournebut, in the opinion of the Marquise, offered 
the same advantages, being about midway between 
the coast and Paris. Its isolation also permitted the 
reception of passing guests without awakening sus- 
picion, while the vast secret rooms where sixty to 
eighty persons could hide at one time, were well 
suited for holding secret councils. To make things 
still safer, Mme. de Combray now acquired a large 
house, situated about two hundred yards from the 
walls of Tournebut, and called " Gros-Mesnil " or 
" Le Petit Chateau." It was a two-story building 
with a high slate roof; the court in front was sur- 
rounded by huts and offices; a high wall enclosed the 
property on all sides, and a pathway led from it to one 
of the doors in the wall surrounding Tournebut. 
' As soon as she was in possession of the Petit 
Chateau, Mme. de Combray had some large secret 
places constructed in it. For this work she em- 
ployed a man called Soyer who combined the func- 
tions of intendant, maitre d'hotel and valet-de-cham- 



58 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

bre at Tournebut. Soyer was born at Combray, one 
of the Marquise's estates in Lower Normandy, and 
entered her service in 1791, at the age of sixteen, in 
the capacity of scullion. He had gone with his mis- 
tress to Rouen during the Terror, and since the return 
to Tournebut she had given the administration of the 
estate into his hands. In this way he had authority 
over the domestics at the chateau, who numbered 
six, and among whom the chambermaid Querey and 
the gardener Chatel deserve special mention. Each 
year, about Easter, Mme. de Combray went to Rouen, 
where under pretext of purchases to make and rents 
to collect, she remained a month. Only Soyer and 
Mile. Querey accompanied her. Besides her patri- 
monial house in the Rue Saint-Amand, she had re- 
tained the quiet house in the Faubourg Bouvreuil 
which still served as a refuge for the exiles sought by 
the police of the Directory, and as a depot for the 
refractories who were sure of finding supplies there 
and means of rejoining the royalist army. Tourne- 
but itself, admirably situated between Upper and 
Lower Normandy, became the refuge for all the 
partisans whom a particularly bold stroke had brought 
to the attention of the authorities on either bank of 
the river, totally separated at this time by the slowness 
and infrequency of communication, and also by the 
centralisation of the police which prevented direct 
intercourse between the different departmental au- 
thorities. It was in this way that Mme. de Com- 
bray, having become from 1796 to 1804, the chief of 
the party with the advantage of being known as such 



THE COMBRAYS 59 

only to the party itself, sheltered the most compro- 
mised of the chiefs of Norman Chouannerie, those 
strange heroes whose mad bravery has brought them 
a legendary fame, and whose names are scarcely to be 
found, doubtfully spelled, in the accounts of historians. 

Among those who sojourned at Tournebut was 
Charles de Margadel, one of Frotte's officers, who 
had organised a royalist police even in Paris. Thence 
he had escaped to deal some blows in the Eure under 
the orders of Hingant de Saint-Maur, another habitue 
of Tournebut who was preparing there his astonish- 
ing expedition of Pacy-sur-Eure. Besides Margadel 
and Hingant, Mme. de Combray had oftenest sheltered 
Armand Gaillard, and his brother Raoul, whose death 
we have related. Deville, called " Tamerlan " ; the 
brothers Tellier; Le Bienvenu du Buc, one of the 
officers of Hingant; also another, hidden under the 
name of Collin, called " Cupidon " ; a German bravo 
named Flierle, called " Le Marchand," whom we 
shall meet again, were also her guests, without count- 
ing " Sauve-la-Graisse," "Sans-Quartier," " Blondel," 
" Perce-Pataud " — actors in the drama, without name 
or history, who were always sure of finding in the 
" cachettes " of the great chateau or the Tour de 
I'Ermitage, refuge and help. 

These were compromising tenants, and it is quite 
easy to imagine what amusements at Tournebut 
served to fill the leisure of these men so long unac- 
customed to regular occupation, and to whom strife 
and danger had become absolute necessaries. Some 
statistics, rather hard to prove, will furnish hints on 



6o THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

this point. In September, 1800, the two coaches 
from Caen to Paris were stopped between Evreux and 
Pacy, at a place called Riquiqui, by two hundred 
armed brigands, and 48,000 livres belonging to the 
State taken. Again, in 1800, the coach from Rouen 
to Pont-Audemer was attacked by twenty Chouans 
and a part of the funds carried off. In 180 1 a coach 
was robbed near Evreux; some days later the mail 
from Caen to Paris was plundered by six brigands. 
On the highroad on the right bank of the Seine at- 
tacks on coaches were frequent near Saint-Gervais, 
d'Authevernes, and the old mill of Mouflaines. It 
was only a good deal later, when the chateau of 
Tournebut was known as an avowed retreat of the 
Chouans, that it occurred to the authorities that " by 
its position at an equal distance from the two roads to 
Paris by Vernon and by Magny-en-Vexin, where the 
mail had so often been stopped," it might well have 
served as a centre of operations, and as the authors 
of these outrages remained undiscovered, they credited 
them all to Mme. de Combray's inspiration, and this 
accusation without proof is none too bold. The 
theft of state funds was a bagatelle to people whom 
ten years of implacable warfare had rendered blase 
about all brigandage. Moreover, it was easily con- 
ceivable that the snare laid by Bonaparte for Frotte, 
who was so popular in Normandy, the summary 
execution of the General and his six officers, the as- 
sassination of the Due d'Enghien, the death of 
Georges Cadoudal (almost a god to the Chouans) and 
of his brave companions, following so many im- 



THE COMBRAYS 6i 

prisonments without trial, acts of police treachery, 
traps and denunciations paid for and rewarded, had 
exasperated the vanquished royalists, and envenomed 
their hatred to the point of believing any expedient 
justifiable. Such was the state of mind of Mme. de 
Combray in the middle of 1804, at which date we 
have stopped the recital of the marital misfortunes of 
Mme. Acquet de Ferolles, and it justified Bonald's 
saying : " Foolish deeds done by clever men, ex- 
travagances uttered by men of intellect, crimes com- 
mitted by honest people — such is the story of the 
revolution." 

D'Ache had taken refuge at Tournebut. He had 
left Paris as soon as the gates were opened, and 
whether he had escaped surveillance more cleverly 
than the brothers Gaillard, whether he had been able 
to get immediately to Saint-Germain where he had a 
refuge, and from there, without risking the passage 
of a ferry or a bridge, without stopping at any inn, 
had succeeded in covering in one day the fifteen 
leagues that separated him from Gaillon, he arrived 
without mishap at Tournebut where Mme. de Com- 
bray immediately shut the door of one of the hiding- 
places upon him. 

Tournebut was familiar ground to d'Ache. He 
was related to Mme. de Combray, and before the 
Revolution, when he was on furlough, he had made 
long visits there while "grandmere Brunelle " was 
still alive. ,He had been back since then and had 
spent there part of the autumn of 1803. There had 



62 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

been a grand reunion at the chateau then, to celebrate 
the marriage of M. du Hasey, proprietor of a chateau 
near Gaillon. Du Hasey was aide-de-camp to Guerin 
de Bruslard, the famous Chouan whom Frotte had 
designated as his successor to the command of the 
royal army, and who had only had to disband it. This 
reunion, which is often mentioned in the reports, by 
the nature and quality of the guests, was more im- 
portant than an ordinary wedding-feast. 

D'Ache learned at Tournebut of the proclamation 
of the Empire and the death of Georges. He looked 
upon it as a death-blow to the royalist hopes ; where- 
ever one might turn there was no resource — no chiefs, 
no money, no men. If many royalists remained in 
the Orne and the Manche, it was impossible to group 
them or pay them. The government gained strength 
and authority daily ; at the slightest movement France 
felt the iron grasp in which she was held tightened 
around her, and such was the prestige of the extra- 
ordinary hero who personified the whole regime, that 
even those he had vanquished did not disguise their 
admiration. The King of Spain — a Bourbon — sent 
him the insignia of the Golden Fleece. The world 
was fascinated and history shows no example of 
material and moral power comparable to that of 
Napoleon when the Holy Father crossed the moun- 
tains to recognise and hail him as the instrument of 
Providence, and anoint him Caesar in the name of 
God. 

It was, however, just at this time that d'Ache, an 
exile, concealed in the Chateau of Tournebut, without 



THE COMBRAYS 63 

a companion, without a penny, without a counsellor 
or ally other than the aged woman who gave him 
refuge, conceived the astonishing idea of struggling 
against the man before whom all Europe bowed the 
knee. Looked at in this light it seems madness, but 
undoubtedly d' Ache's royalist illusions blinded him to 
the conditions of the duel he was to engage in. But 
these illusions were common to many people for 
whom Bonaparte, at the height of his power, was 
never anything but an audacious criminal whose 
factitious greatness was at the mercy of a well-directed 
and fortunate blow. 

Fouche's police had not given up hopes of finding 
the fugitive. They looked for him in Paris, Rouen, 
Saint-Denis-du-Bosguerard, near Bourgtheroulde, 
where his mother possessed a small estate ; they 
watched closest at Saint-Clair whither his wife and 
daughters had returned after the execution of Georges. 
The doors of the Madelonnettes prison had been 
opened for thcni and they had been informed that they 
must remove themselves forty leagues from Paris and 
the coast ; but the poor woman, almost without 
resources, had not paid attention to this injunction, 
and they were allowed to remain at Saint-Clair in the 
hope that d'Ache would tire of his wandering life, and 
allow himself to be taken at home. As to Placide, as 
soon as he found himself out of the Temple, and had 
conducted his sister-in-law and nieces home, he re- 
turned to Rouen, where he arrived in mid-July. 
Scarcely had he been one night in his lodging in the 
Rue Saint-Patrice, when he received a letter — how, or 



64 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

from where he could not say — announcing that his 
brother had gone away so as not to compromise his 
family again, and that he would not return to France 
until general peace was proclaimed, hoping then to 
obtain permission from the government to end his 
days in the bosom of his family. 

D'Ache, however, was living in Tournebut without 
much mystery. The only precaution he took Was to 
avoid leaving the property, and he had taken the name 
of " Deslorieres," one of the pseudonyms of Georges 
Cadoudal, " as if he wanted to name himself as his 
successor." Little by little the servants became ac- 
customed to the presence of this guest of whom Mme. 
de Combray took such good care " because he had had 
differences with the government," as she said. Under 
pretext of repairs undertaken in the church of Au- 
bevoye, the cure of the parish was invited to celebrate 
mass every Sunday in the chapel of the chateau, and 
d'Ache could thus be present at the celebration with- 
out showing himself in the village. 

Doubtless the days passed slowly for this man ac- 
customed to an active life ; he and his old friend dreamt 
of the return of the King, and Bonnoeil, who spent 
part of the year at Tournebut, read to them a funeral 
oration of the Due d*Enghien, a virulent pamphlet 
that the royalists passed from hand to hand, and of 
which he had taken a copy. How many times must 
d'Ache have paced the magnificent avenue of limes, 
which still exists as the only vestige of the old park. 
There is a moss-grown stone table on which one 
loves to fancy this strange man leaning his elbow 



THE COMBRAYS 65 

while he thought of his " rival," and planned the 
future according to his royalist illusions as the other 
in his Olympia, the Tuileries, planned it according to 
his ambitious caprices. 

This existence lasted fifteen months. From the 
time of his arrival at the end of March, 1804, until 
the day he left, it does not seem that d'Ache received 
any visitors, except Mme. Levasseur of Rouen, who, 
if police reports are to be believed, was simultaneously 
his mistress and Raoul Gaillard's. The truth is that 
she was a devoted friend of the royalists — to whom 
she had rendered great service, and through her 
d'Ache was kept informed of what happened in Lower 
Normandy during his seclusion at Tournebut. Since 
the general pacification, tranquillity was, in appearance 
at least, established ; Chouannerie seemed to be for- 
gotten. But conscription was not much to the taste 
of the rural classes, and the rigour with which it was 
applied alienated the population. The number of re- 
fractories and deserters augmented at each requisition ; 
protected by the sympathy of the peasants they easily 
escaped all search ; the country people considered them 
victims rather than rebels, and gave them assistance 
when they could do so without being seen. There 
were here all the elements of a new insurrection ; to 
which would be added, if they succeeded in uniting 
and equipping all these malcontents, the survivors of 
Frotte's bands, exasperated by the rigours of the new 
regime, and the ill-treatment of the gendarmes. 

The descent of a French prince on the Norman 
coast would in d'Ache's opinion, group all these mal- 



66 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

contents. Thoroughly persuaded that to persuade 
one of them to cross the channel it would suffice to 
tell M. le Comte d'Artois or one of his sons that his 
presence was desired by the faithful population in the 
West, he thought of going himself to England with 
the invitation. Perhaps they would be able to per- 
suade the King to put himself at the head of the 
movement, and be the first to land on French soil. 
This was d' Ache's secret conviction, and in the ardour 
of his credulous enthusiasm he was certain that on the 
announcement, Napoleon's Empire would crumble of 
itself, without the necessity of a single blow. 

Such was the eternal subject of conversation be- 
tween Mme. de Combray and her guest, varied by 
interminable parties of cards of tric-trac. In their 
feverish idleness, isolated from the rest of the world, 
ignorant of new ideas and new manners, they shut 
themselves up with their illusions, which took on the 
colour of reality. And while the exile studied the part 
of the coast where, followed by an army of volunteers 
with white plumes, he would go to receive his 
Majesty, the old Marquise put the last touches to the 
apartments long ago prepared for the reception of the 
King and his suite on their way to Paris. And in 
order to perpetuate the remembrance of this visit, 
which would be the most glorious page in the history 
of Tournebut, she had caused the old part of the cha- 
teau, left unfinished by Marillac, to be restored and 
ornamented. 

In July, 1805, after more than a year passed in this 
solitude, d'Ache judged that the moment to act had 



THE COMBRAYS 67 

arrived. The Emperor was going to take the field 
against a new coalition, and the campaign might be 
unfavourable to him. It only needed a defeat to shake 
to its foundations the new Empire whose prestige a 
victorious army alone maintained. It was important 
to profit by this chance should it arrive. And in 
order to be within reach of the English cruiser d'Ache 
had to be near Cotentin ; he had many devoted 
friends in this region and was sure of finding a safe 
retreat. Mme. de Combray, taking advantage of the 
fair of Saint-Clair which was held every year in mid- 
July, near the Chateau of Donnay, could conduct her 
guest beyond Falaise without exciting suspicion. 
They determined to start then, and about July 15, 
1805, the Marquise left Tournebut with her son Bon- 
noeil, in a cabriolet that d'Ache drove, disguised as a 
postillion. 

In this equipage, the man without any resource but 
his courage, and his royalist faith, whose dream was 
to change the course of the world's events, started on 
his campaign ; and one is obliged to think, in face of 
this heroic simplicity, of Cervantes' hero, quitting his 
house one fine morning, and armed with an old shield 
and lance, encased in antiquated armour and animated 
by a sublime but foolish faith, going forth to succour 
the oppressed, and declare war on Giants. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ADVENTURES OF d'aCHE 

The demesne of Donnay, situated about three 
leagues from Falaise on the road to Harcourt, was one 
of the estates which Acquet de Ferolles had usurped, 
under pretext of saving them from the Public Treas- 
ury and of taking over the management of the prop- 
erty of his brother-in-law, Bonnoeil, who was an 
emigre. Now, the latter had for some time returned 
to the enjoyment of his civil rights, but Acquet had 
not restored his possessions. This terrible man, act- 
ing in the name of his wife, who was a claimant of 
the inheritance of the late M. de Combray, had insti- 
tuted a series of lawsuits against his brother-in-law. 
He proved to be such a clever tactician, that though 
Mme. Acquet had for some time been suing for a 
separation, he managed to live on the Combray es- 
tates ; fortifying his position by means of a store of 
quotations drawn, as occasion demanded, from the 
Common Law of Normandy, the Revolutionary Laws 
and the Code Napoleon. To deal with these ques- 
tions in detail would be wearisome and useless. Suf- 
fice it to say that at the period at which we have 
arrived, all that Mme. Acquet had to depend upon . 
was a pension of 2,000 francs which the court had 
granted to her on August i, 1804, for her mainte- 

68 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 69 

nance pending a definite decision. She lived alone at 
the Hotel de Combray in the Rue du Trepot at 
Falaise, a very large house composed of two main 
buildings, one of w^hich vi^as vacant outing to the ab- 
sence of Timoleon who had settled in Paris. Mme. 
de Combray had undertaken to assist with her grand- 
daughters' education, and they had been sent off to a 
school kept by a Mme. du Saussay at Rouen. 

Foreseeing that this state of things could not last 
forever, Acquet, despite Bonnoeil's oft-repeated pro- 
tests, continued to devastate Donnay, so as to get all 
he could out of it, cutting down the forests, chopping 
the elms into faggots, and felling the ancient beeches. 
The very castle whose facade but lately reached to 
the end of the stately avenue, suffered from his devas- 
tations. It was now nothing but a ruin with swing- 
doors and a leaking roof. Here Acquet had reserved 
a garret for himself, abandoning the rest of the house 
to the ravages of time and the weather. Shut up in 
this ruin like a wild beast in his lair, he would not 
permit the slightest infringement of what he called 
his rights. Mme. de Combray wished to spend the 
harvest season of 1803 at the chateau, where the 
happiest years of her life had been passed, and where 
all her children had grown up, but Acquet made the 
bailiff turn her out, and the Marquise took refuge in 
the village parsonage, which had been sold at the time 
of the Revolution as national property, and for which 
she had supplied half the money, when the Commune 
bought it back, to restore it to its original purpose. 
Since no priest had yet been appointed she was able 



70 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

to take up her residence there, to the indignation of 
her son-in-law, who considered this intrusion as a 
piece of bravado. 

Two years later Mme. de Combray had still no 
other shelter at Donnay, and it was to this parsonage 
that she brought d'Ache. They arrived there on the 
evening of July 17th. A long stay in this con- 
spicuous house, which was always exposed to the 
hateful espionage of Acquet, was out of the question 
for the exile. He nevertheless spent a fortnight 
there, without trying to hide himself, even going so 
far as to hunt, and receive several visits, among others 
one from Mme. Acquet, who came from Falaise to 
see her mother, and thus met d'Ache for the first 
time. At the beginning of August he quitted 
Donnay, and Mme. de Combray accompanied him as 
far as the country chateau of a neighbour, M. 
Descroisy, where he passed one night. At break of 
day he set out on horseback in the direction of 
Bayeux, Mme. de Combray alone knowing where he 
went. 

In this neighbourhood d'Ache had the choice of 
several places of refuge. He was closely connected 
by ties of friendship with the family of Duquesnay 
de Monfiquet who lived at Mandeville near Trevieres. 
M. de Monfiquet, a thoroughly loyal but quite unim- 
portant nobleman, having emigrated at the outbreak 
of the Revolution, his estate at Mandeville had been 
sequestrated and his chateau pillaged and half demol- 
ished. Mme. de Monfiquet, a clever and energetic 
woman, being left with six daughters unprovided for, 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 71 

took refuge with the d' Aches at Gournay, where she 
spent the whole period of the Terror. Madame 
d'Ache even kept Henriette, one of the little girls 
who was ill-favoured and hunchbacked but remarkably 
clever, with her for five years. 

Monsieur de Monfiquet, returning from abroad in 
the year VII, and having somewhat reorganised his 
little estate at Mandeville, lived there in poverty with 
his family in the hope that brighter days would dawn 
for them with the return of the monarchy. On all 
these grounds d'Ache was sure of finding not only a 
safe retreat but congenial society. The few persons 
who were acquainted with what passed at Mandeville 
were convinced that Mile. Henriette possessed a great 
influence over the exile, and that she had been his 
mistress for a long time. According to general 
opinion he made her his confidant and she helped him 
like a devoted admirer. In fact she arranged several 
other hiding-places for him in the neighbourhood of 
Trevieres in case of need ;— one at the mill at Dungy, 
another with M. de Cantelou at Lingevres, and a 
third at a tanner's named La Perandeere at Bayeux. 
And to escort him in his flights she secured a man of 
unparalleled audacity who had been a brigand in the 
district for ten years, and who had to avenge the 
death of his two brothers, who had fallen into an am- 
bush and been shot at Bayeux in. 1796. People 
called him David the Intrepid. Having been ten 
times condemned to death and certain of being shot 
as soon as he was caught, David had no settled abode. 
On stormy nights he would embark in a boat which 



72 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

he steered himself, and, sure of not being overtaken, 
he would reach England where he used to act as an 
agent for the emigrants. They say that he was not 
without influence with the entourage of the Comte 
d'Artois. When he stayed in France he lodged with 
an old lady former housekeeper to a Councillor of the 
Parliament of Normandy, who lived alone in an old 
house in Bayeux and to whom he had been recom- 
mended by Mile. Henriette de Monfiquet. David 
did not take up much room. When he arrived he 
set in motion a contrivance of his own by which two 
steps of the principal staircase were raised, and slip- 
ping into the cavity thus made, he quickly replaced 
everything. All the gendarmes in Calvados could 
have gone up and down this staircase without suspect- 
ing that a man was hidden in the house, where, how- 
ever, he was never looked for. 

These were the persons and means made use of 
by d'Ache in his new theatre of operations : a poor 
hunchbacked girl was his council, and his army was 
composed of David the Intrepid. He was, moreover, 
penniless. At the beginning of the autumn Mme. de 
Combray sent him eight louis by Lanoe, a keeper who 
had been in her service, and who now occupied a 
small farm at Glatigny, near to Bretteville-sur-Dives. 
Lanoe belonged to that rapacious type of peasant 
whom even a small sum of money never fails to at- 
tract. Already he had on two occasions acted as 
guide to the Baron de Commarque and to Frotte when 
Mme. de Combray offered them shelter at Donnay. 
For this he had been summoned before a military 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 73 

commission and spent nearly two years in prison, but 
this had no effect. For three francs he would walk 
ten leagues and if he complained sufficiently of the 
dangers to which these missions exposed him the sum 
was doubled and he would go away satisfied. In the 
middle of August he went to Mandeville to fetch 
d'Ache to Donnay, where he spent ten days and 
again passed three weeks at the end of September. 
He was to have gone there again in December, but at 
the moment when he was preparing to start Bonnoeil 
suddenly appeared at Mandeville, having come to warn 
him not to venture there as Mme. de Combray had 
been accused of a crime and was on the point of be- 
ing arrested. 

It was not without vexation that Acquet saw his 
mother-in-law settling herself at his very door. 
Keenly on the lookout for any means of annoying 
the Marquise, he was struck by the idea that if an 
incumbent were appointed to the vacant cure of 
Donnay, he would have to live at the parsonage, half 
of which belonged to the Commune, and that their 
being obliged to live in the same house would be a 
great inconvenience to A-Ime. de Combray. This 
prospect charmed Acquet, and as he had several 
friends in high positions, among them the Baron 
Darthenay his neighbour at Meslay, who had lately 
been elected deputy for Calvados, he had small diffi- 
culty in getting a priest appointed. A few days after- 
wards a cure, the Abbe Clerisse, arrived at Donnay, 
fully determined to carry out the duties of his ministry 



74 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

faithfully, and very far from foreseeing the tragic fate 
in store for him. 

Mme. de Combray had made herself quite comfort- 
able at the parsonage, which she considered in a man- 
ner her own property since she had furnished half the 
money for its purchase. She now saw herself com- 
pelled to surrender a portion of it, which from the 
very first embittered her against the new arrival. 
Acquet, for his part, feted his protege, and welcoming 
him cordially put him on his guard against the machi- 
nations of the Marquise, whom he represented as an 
inveterate enemy of the conciliatory government to 
which France owed the Concordat. The Abbe 
Clerisse, who, from the construction of the house was 
obliged to use the rooms in common with Mme. de 
Combray, was not long in noticing the mysterious be- 
haviour of the occupants. There were conferences 
conducted in whispers, visitors who arrived at night 
and left at dawn, secret comings and goings, in short, 
all the strange doings of a houseful of conspirators, so 
that the good cure one day took Lanoe aside and 
recommended him to be prudent, " predicting that he 
would get himself into serious difficulties if he did not 
quit the service of the Marquise as soon as possible." 
Mme. de Combray, in her exasperation, calkd the 
Abbe " Concordataire," an epithet which, from her, 
was equivalent to renegade. She had the imprudence 
to add that the reign of the "usurper would not last 
forever, and that the princes would soon return at the 
head of an English army and restore everything." In 
her wrath she left the parsonage, making a great com- 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 75 

motion, and went to beg shelter from her farmer 
Hebert, who lived in a cottage used as a public house, 
called La Bijude, where the road from Harcourt met 
that from Cesny. Acquet was triumphant. The as- 
tonished Abbe remained passive ; and as ill luck 
would have it, fell ill and died a few days afterwards. 
A report was circulated, emanating from the chateau, 
that he had died of grief caused by Mme. de Com- 
bray. Then people began to talk in whispers about 
a certain basket of white wine with which she had 
presented the poor priest. A week later all those 
who sided with Acquet were convinced that the Mar- 
quise had poisoned the Abbe Clerisse, " after having 
been imprudent enough to take him into her con- 
fidence." Feeling ran high in the village. Acquet 
affected consternation. The authorities, no doubt in- 
formed by him, began making investigations when a 
nephew of the Marquise, M. de Saint Leonard, Mayor 
of Falaise, who was on very good terms with the 
Court, came down to hush up the affair and impose 
silence on the mischief-makers. 

This first bout between Acquet de Ferolles and the 
family de Combray resulted in d'Ache's being for- 
bidden the house of his old friend. Feeling herself 
in the clutches of an enemy who was always on the 
watch, she did not dare to expose to denunciation a 
man on whose head the fate of the monarchy rested. 
D'Ache did not come to La Bijude the whole winter. 
Mme. de Combray lived there alone with her son 
Bonnceil and the farmer Hebert. She had the house 
done up and repainted, but it distressed her to be so 



76 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

meanly lodged, and she regretted the lofty halls and the 
quiet of Tournebut. At the beginning of Lent, 1806, 
she sent Lanoe for the last time to Mandeville to ar- 
range with d'Ache some means of correspondence, 
and with Bonnoeil she again started for Gaillon, de- 
termined never again to set foot on her estates in 
Lower Normandy as long as her son-in-law reigned 
there, and thoroughly convinced that the fast ap- 
proaching return of the King would avenge all the 
humiliations she had lately endured. She had, more- 
over, quarrelled with her daughter, who had only 
come to Donnay twice during her mother's stay, and 
had there displayed only a very moderate appreciation 
of d' Ache's plans, and had seemed entirely uninter- 
ested in the annoyance caused to the Marquise, and 
her exodus to La Bijude. 

If Mme. Acquet de Ferolles was really lacking in 
interest, it was because a great event had occurred in 
her own life. 

Acquet knew that his wife's suit for a separation 
must inevitably be granted. The ill-treatment she 
had had to endure was only too well-known, and 
every one in Falaise took her part. If Acquet lost 
the case, it would mean the end of the easy life he 
was leading at Donnay, and he not only wished to 
gain time but secretly hoped that his wife would com- 
mit some indiscretion that would regain for him if not 
the sympathies of the public, at least her loss of the 
suit which if won, would ruin him. In order to carry 
out his Machiavellian schemes, he pretended that he 
wished to come to an understanding with the Com- 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 77 

bray family, and he despatched one of his friends to 
Mme. Acquet to open negotiations. This friend, 
named Le Chevalier, was a handsome young man of 
twenty-live, with dark hair, a pale complexion and 
white teeth. He had languishing eyes, a sympathetic 
voice and a graceful figure, inexhaustible good-hu- 
mour, despite his melancholy appearance, and un- 
bounded audacity. As he was the owner of a farm 
in the Commune of Saint Arnould in the neighbour- 
hood of Exmes, he was called Le Chevalier de Saint- 
Arnould, which gave him the position of a nobleman. 
He was moreover related to the nobility. 

Less has been written about Le Chevalier than 
about most of those who were concerned in the 
troubles in the west. Nevertheless, his adventures 
deserve more than the few lines, often incorrect, de- 
voted to him by some chroniclers of the revolt of the 
Chouans. He was a remarkable personality, very 
romantic, somewhat of an enigma, and one who by a 
touch of gallantry and scepticism was distinguished 
from his savage and heroic companions. 

Born with a generous temperament and deeply in 
love with glory, as he said, he was the son of a 
councillor, hammer-keeper to the corporation of the 
woods and forests of VIre. A stay of several years in 
Paris where he took lessons from different masters as 
much in science as in the arts and foreign languages, 
had completed his education. He returned to Saint 
Arnould In 1799, uncertain as to the choice of a 
career, when a chance meeting with Picot, chief of 
the Auge division, whose death was described at the 



78 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

beginning of this story, decided his vocation, and Le 
Chevalier became a royalist officer, less from con- 
viction than from generous feelings vi^hich inclined 
him towards the cause of the vanquished and op- 
pressed. A pistol shot broke his left arm two or 
three days after he was enrolled, and he was scarcely 
cured of this wound when he again took the field and 
was implicated in the stopping of a coach. Three of 
his friends were imprisoned, and when he himself was 
arrested, he succeeded in proving that on the very day 
of the attack, in the neighbourhood of Evreux, he was 
on a visit to a senator in Paris who had great friends 
among the authorities, and the magistrates were com- 
pelled to yield before this indisputable alibi. Le 
Chevalier, nevertheless, appeared before the tribunal 
which was trying the cases of his companions, and 
pleaded their cause with the eloquence inspired by the 
purest and bravest friendship, and when he heard them 
condemned to death, he begged in a burst of feeling 
which amazed everybody, to be allowed to share their 
fate. It was considered a sufficient punishment to 
send him to prison at Caen, whence he was liberated 
a few months later, though he had to remain in the 
town under police surveillance. It was then that the 
wild romance of his life began. 

He possessed an ample fortune. His chivalrous 
behaviour in the affair at Evreux had gained for him, 
among the Chouans such renown that without know- 
ing him otherwise than from hearsay, Mme. de Com- 
bray travelled across Normandy, as did many other 
royalist ladies in order to visit the hero in prison and 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 79 

offer him her services. He had admirers who fawned 
on him, flatterers who praised him to the skies, and 
how could this rather hot-headed youth of twenty- 
resist such adulation at that strange epoch when even 
the wisest lost their balance ? At least his folly was 
generous. 

Scarcely out of prison he was seized with pity for 
the misery of the pardoned Chouans, veritable pariahs, 
who lived by all sorts of contrivances or were de- 
pendent on charity, and he made their care his special 
charge. He was always followed by a dozen of these 
parasites, a ragged troop of whom filled the Cafe 
Hervieux, where he held his court and which more- 
over was frequented by teachers of English, mathe- 
matics and fencing, whom he had in his pay, and 
from whom he took lessons when not playing faro. 

Le Chevalier had a warm heart, and a purse that 
was never closed. He was a facile speaker whose 
eloquence was of a forensic type. His friendships 
were passionate. While in prison he received news 
of the death of one of his friends, Gilbert, who had 
been guillotined at Evreux, and when some one con- 
gratulated him on his approaching release he replied : 
" Ah, my dear comrade ! do you think this is a time 
to congratulate me ? Do you know so little of my 
heart and are you so ignorant of the love I bore 
Gilbert ? The happiness of my life is destroyed for- 
ever. Nothing can fill the void in my heart. . . 
I have lived, ah ! far too long. O divine duties of 
friendship and honour, how my heart burns to fulfil 
you! O eternity or annihilation, how sweet will 



8o THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

you seem to me whence once I have fulfilled them ! " 
Such was Le Chevalier's style and this affection con- 
trasted singularly with the world in which he lived. 
His comparative wealth, his generosity, and an air of 
mystery about his life, gave him a certain advantage 
over the most popular leaders. People knew that he 
was dreaming of gigantic projects, and his partisans 
considered him cut out for the accomplishment of 
great things. 

In reality Le Chevalier squandered his patrimony 
recklessly. The treasury of the party — presided over 
by an old officer of Frotte's, Bureau de Placene, who 
pompously styled himself the Treasurer-General — was 
empty, and orders came from "high places," without 
any one exactly knowing whence they emanated, for 
the faithful to refill them by pillaging the coffers of the 
state. The police had little by little relaxed their 
supervision of Le Chevalier's conduct, and he took 
advantage of this to go away for short periods. It 
was remarked that each of his absences generally 
coincided with the stopping of a coach — a frequent 
occurrence in Normandy at this time, and one that 
was considered as justifiable by the royalists. Seldom 
did they feel any qualms about these exploits. The 
driver, and often his escort, were accomplices of the 
Chouans. A few shots were fired from muskets or 
pistols to keep up the pretence of a fight. Some of 
the men opened the chests while others kept watch. 
The money belonging to the government was divided 
to the last sou, while that belonging to private indi- 
viduals was carefully returned to the strong box. A 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 8i 

few hours later the band returned to Caen and the 
noisy meetings at the Cafe Hervieux were not even 
interrupted. 

What renders the figure of Le Chevalier especially- 
attractive, despite these mad pranks, which no one of 
his day considered dishonourable, is the deep private 
grief which saddened his adventurous life. In 1801, 
when he was twenty-one years of age, and during his 
detention at Caen, he had married Lucile Thiboust, a 
girl somewhat older than himself, whose father had 
been overseer of an estate. He was obliged to break 
out of prison to spend a few rare hours with the wife 
whom he dearly loved, all the more so since his 
passion was oftenest obliged to expend itself in ardent 
letters not devoid of literary merit. In prison he 
learned of the birth of a son born of this union, and a 
week later, of the death of his adored wife. His grief 
was terrible, but he was seized with a passionate love 
for his child, and it is said that from that day forth he 
cared for no one else. He had lived so fast that at 
the age of twenty-three he was tired of life ; his only 
anxiety was for the future of his son, whom he had 
confided to the care of a good woman named Marie 
Hamon. He traced out a line of conduct for this 
babe in swaddling clothes : " Let him flee corruption, 
seduction and all shameful and violent passions ; let 
him be a friend as they were in ancient Greece, a 
lover as in ancient Gaul." 

In short his exploits, his captivity, his sorrows, his 
eloquence, his courage, his noble bearing, made Le 
Chevalier a hero of romance, and this was the man 



82 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

whom Acquet de Ferolles deemed it wise to despatch 
to his wife. Doubtless he had made his acquaintance 
through the medium of some of his Chouan com- 
rades. He received him at Donnay, and in order to 
attach him to himself lent him large sums of money, 
which Le Chevalier immediately distributed among 
the crowd of parasites that never left him. Acquet 
told him of the separation with which his wife threat- 
ened him, begging him to use all his eloquence to 
bring about an amicable settlement. 

The poor woman would never have known this 
peacemaker but for her husband, and we are ignorant 
of the manner in which he acquitted himself of his 
mission. She had yielded as much from inexperience 
as from compulsion, to a man who for five years had 
made her life a martyrdom. She lived at Falaise in 
an isolation that accorded ill with her yearning for 
love and her impressionable nature. The person who 
now came suddenly into her life corresponded so well 
with her idea of a hero — he was so handsome, so 
brave, so generous, he spoke with such gentleness and 
politeness that Mme. Acquet, to whom these qualities 
were startling novelties, loved him from the first day 
with an " ungovernable passion." She associated 
herself with his life with an ardour that excluded 
every other sentiment, and she so wished to stand 
well with him that, casting aside all prudence, she 
adopted his adventurous mode of living, mixing with 
the outcasts who formed the entourage of her lover, 
and with them frequenting the inns and cafes of 
Caen. He succeeded in avoiding the surveillance of 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 83 

the police, and secretly undertook journeys to Paris 
where he said he had friends in the Emperor's im- 
mediate circle. He travelled by those roads in Nor- 
mandy which were known to all the old Chouans, 
talking to them of the good times when they made 
war on the Blues, and not hesitating to say that, 
whenever he wished, he had only to make a sign and 
an army would spring up around him. He main- 
tained, moreover, a small troop of determined men 
who carried his messages and formed his stafF. 

There is not the slightest doubt that their chief re- 
source lay in carrying off the money of the State 
which was sent from place to place in public convey- 
ances, and it was this booty that enriched the coffers 
of the party, the treasurer, Placene, having long since 
grown indifferent to the source of his supplies. The 
agreement of certain dates is singularly convincing. 
Thus, at the beginning of December, 1805, d'Ache 
was at Mandeville with the Monfiquets, in a state of 
such penury that, as we have seen, Mme. de Com- 
bray sent him eight louis d'or by Lanoe ; neverthe- 
less, he was thinking of going to England to fetch 
back the princes. He would require a considerable 
sum to prepare for his journey, and to guard against 
all the contingencies of this somewhat audacious at- 
tempt. Mme. Acquet was informed of the situation 
by her mother whom she came to visit at Donnay, 
and on the 22d December, 1805, the coach from 
Rouen to Paris was attacked on the slope of Authe- 
vernes, at a distance of only three leagues from the 
Chateau of Tournebut. The travellers noticed that 



84 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

one of the brigands, dressed in a military costume, and 
whom his comrades called The Dragon, was so much 
thinner and more active than the rest, that he might 
well have been taken " for a woman dressed as a 
man." A fresh attack was made at the same place 
by the same band on the 15th February, 1806; and 
as before the band disappeared so rapidly, once the 
blow was struck, that it seemed they must hav^e taken 
refuge in one of the neighbouring houses. Suspicion 
fell on the Chateau de Mussegros, situated about three 
leagues from Authevernes j but nobody then thought 
of Tournebut, the owners of which had been absent 
for seven months. It was only in March that Mme. 
de Combray returned there, and it was in April that 
d'Ache, having laid in a good stock of money, de- 
cided to cross the channel and convey to the princes 
the good wishes of their faithful provinces in the 
west. 

D'Ache had not wasted his time during his stay at 
Mandeville. It was a difficult enterprise in existing 
circumstances to arrange his crossings with any 
chance of success. The embarkation was easy 
enough, and David the Intrepid had undertaken to 
see to it ; but it was especially important to secure a 
safe return, and a secret landing on the French coast, 
lined as it was by patrols, watched day and night by 
custom-house officers, and guarded by sentinels at 
every point where a boat could approach the shore, 
offered almost insuperable difficulties. D'Ache 
selected a little creek at the foot of the rocks of Saint 
Honorine, scarcely two leagues from Trevieres and 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 85 

David, who knew all the coast guards in the district, 
bribed one of them to become an accomplice. 

It was on a stormy night at the end of April, 1806, 
that d'Ache put to sea in a boat seventeen feet long, 
which was steered by David the Intrepid. After 
tossing about for fifty hours, they landed in England. 
David immediately stood out to sea again, while 
d'Ache took the road to London. 

One can easily imagine what the feelings of these 
royalist fanatics must have been when they ap- 
proached the princes to whom they had devoted so 
many years of their Hves, hunted over France and 
pursued like malefactors; how they must have antici- 
pated the welcome in London that their devotion 
merited. They were prepared to be treated like sons 
by the King, as friends by the princes, as leaders by 
the emigrants, who were only waiting to return till 
France was reconquered for them. The deception 
was cruel. The emigrant world, so easy to dupe on 
account of its misfortunes, and immeasurable vanity, 
had fallen a victim to so many false Chouans — spies 
in disguise and barefaced swindlers, who each brought 
plans for the restoration, and after obtaining money 
made off and were never seen again — that distrust at 
last had taken the place of the unsuspecting confi- 
dence of former days. Every Frenchman who ar- 
rived in London was considered an. adventurer, and 
as far as we can gather from this closed page of 
history, — for those, who tried the experiment of a 
visit to the exiled princes, have respectfully kept 
silence on the subject of their discomfiture — it ap- 



86 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

pears that terrible mortifications were in store for the 
militant royalists who approached the emigrant lead- 
ers. D'Ache did not escape disillusionment, and 
though he did not disclose the incidents of his stay in 
London, we know that at first he was thrown into 
prison, and that for two months he could not succeed 
in obtaining an interview with the Comte d'Artois, 
much less with the exiled King. 

M. de la Chapelle, the most influential man at the 
little court at Hartwell, sent for him and questioned 
him about his plans, but was opposed to his being re- 
ceived by the princes, though he put him in com- 
munication with King George's ministers, every 
person who brought news of any plot against Napo- 
leon's government being sure of a welcome and a 
hearing from the latter. 

After three weeks of conferences the expedition 
which was to support a general rising of the peasants 
in the West, was postponed till the spring of 1807. 
A feigned attack on Port-en-Bessin would allow of 
their surprising the islands of Tahitou and Saint- 
Marcouf as well as Port-Bail on the western slope 
of the Cotentin. The destruction of the roads, 
which protect the lower part of the peninsula, would 
insure the success of the undertaking by cutting ofF 
Cherbourg which, attacked from behind, would easily 
be carried, resistance being impossible. The invading 
army, concentrating under the forts of the town, in 
which they would have a safe retreat, would descend 
by Carenton on Saint-L6 and Caen to meet the army 
of peasants and malcontents whose cooperation d'Ache 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 87 

guaranteed. He undertook to collect twenty thou- 
sand men ; the English government offered the same 
number of Russian and Swedish soldiers, and to pro- 
vide for their transportation to the coast of France. 
Pending this, d'Ache was given unlimited credit on 
the banker Nourry at Caen. 

His stay in London lasted nearly three months. 
Towards the end of July an English frigate took him 
to the fleet where Admiral Saumarez received him 
with great deference, and equipped a brig with four- 
teen cannon to convey him to the shore. When, at 
night, they were within a gunshot of the coast of 
Saint-Honorine, d'Ache himself made the signals 
agreed upon, which were quickly answered by the 
coast guard on shore. An hour afterwards David 
the Intrepid's boat hailed the English brig, and before 
daybreak d'Ache was back at Mandeville, sharing 
with his hosts the joy he felt at the success of his 
voyage. They began to make plans immediately. It 
was decided on the spot that the Chateau de Mon- 
fiquet should shelter the King during the first few 
days after he landed. Eight months were to elapse 
before the beginning of the campaign, and as money 
was not lacking this time was sufficient for d'Ache to 
prepare for operations. 

We may as well mention at once that the English 
Cabinet, while playing on the fanaticism of d'Ache, 
as they had formerly done on that of Georges Ca- 
doudal and so many others, had not the slightest in- 
tention of keeping their promises. Their hatred of 
Napoleon suggested to them the infamous idea of ex- 



88 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

citing the naive royalists of France by raising hopes 
they never meant to satisfy. They abandoned them 
once they saw their dupes so deeply implicated that 
there vi^as no drawing back, caring little if they helped 
them to the scaffold, desirous only of maintaining 
agitations in France and of driving them into such 
desperate straits that some assassin might arise from 
among them who would rid the world of Bonaparte. 
Here lies, doubtless, one of the reasons why the ex- 
iled princes so obstinately refused to encourage their 
partisans* attempts. Did they know of the snares 
laid for these unhappy creatures ? Did they not dare 
to put them on their guard for fear of offending the 
English government ? Was this the rent they paid 
for Hartwell ? The history of the intrigues which 
played around the claimant to the throne is full of 
mystery. Those who were mixed up in them, such 
as Fauche-Bonel or Hyde de Neuville were ruined, 
and it required the daylight of the Restoration to 
open the eyes of the persons most interested to the 
fact that certain professions of devotion had been 
treacherous. 

As far as d'Ache was concerned it seems fairly 
certain that he did not receive any promise from the 
princes, and was not even admitted to their presence ; 
the English ministers alone encouraged him to em- 
bark on this extraordinary adventure, in which they 
were fully determined to let him ruin himself. 
Therefore the " unlimited " credit opened at the 
banker Nourry's was only a bait : while making the 
conspirators think they would never want for money, 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 89 

the credit was limited beforehand to 30,000 francs, a 
piece of duplicity which enraged even the detectives 
who, later on, discovered it. 

It is not easy to follow d'Ache in the mysterious 
work upon which he entered : the precautions he 
took to escape the police have caused him to be lost 
to posterity as well. Some slight landmarks barely 
permit our following his trail during the few years 
which form the climax of his wonderful career. 

We find him first of all during the autumn of 1806, 
at La Bijude, where Mme. de Combray, who had 
remained at Tournebut had charged Bonnoeil and 
Mme. Acquet to go and receive him. There was 
some question of providing him with a messenger 
familiar with the haunts of the Chouans and the 
dangers connected with the task. To fulfil this duty 
Mme. Acquet proposed a German named Flierle 
whom Le Chevalier recommended. Flierle had dis- 
tinguished himself in the revolt of the Chouans ; a 
renowned fighter, he had been mixed up in every plot. 
He was in Paris at the time of the eighteenth Fruc- 
tidor; he turned up there again at the moment when 
Saint-Rejant was preparing his infernal machine ; he 
again spent three months there at the time of Georges' 
conspiracy. For the last two years, whilst waiting 
for a fresh engagement, he had lived on a small pen- 
sion from the royal treasury, and when funds were 
low, he made one of his more fortunate companions 
in old days put him up ; and thus he roamed from 
Caen to Falaise, from Mortain to Bayeux or Saint- 
L6, even going into Mayenne in his wanderings. 



90 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Although he would never have acknowledged it, we 
may say that he was one of the men usually em- 
ployed in attacking public vehicles : in fact, he was 
an adept at it and went by the name of the " Teisch/* 

Summoned to La Bijude he presented himself there 
one morning towards the end of October. D'Ache 
arrived there the same evening while they were at 
dinner. They talked rather vaguely of the great 
project, but much of their old Chouan comrades. In 
spite of his decided German accent Flierle was inex- 
haustible on this theme. He and d'Ache slept in the 
same room, and this intimacy lasted two whole days, 
at the end of which it was decided that Flierle should 
be employed as a messenger at a salary of fifty 
crowns a month. That same night, Lanoe con- 
ducted d'Ache two leagues from La Bijude and left 
him on the road to Arjentan. 

Here is a new landmark : on November 26th, 
Veyrat, the inspector of police, hastily informed 
Desmarets that d'Ache, whom they had been seeking 
for two years, had arrived the night before in Paris, 
getting out of the coach from Rennes in the company 
of a man named Durand. The latter, leaving his 
trunk at the office, spent the night at a house in the 
Rue Montmartre, whence he departed the next morn- 
ing for Boulogne. As for d'Ache, wrote Veyrat, he 
had neither box nor parcel, and disappeared as soon 
as he got out of the carriage. Search was made in 
all the furnished lodgings and hotels in the neighbour- 
hood, but without result. Desmarets set all his best 
men to work, but in vain : d'Ache was not to be found. 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 91 

He was at Tournebut, where he spent a month. 
It is probable that a pressing need of money was the 
cause of this journey to Paris and his visit to Mme. 
de Combray. By this time d'Ache had exhausted his 
credit at the banker Nourry's. Believing that this 
source would never be exhausted, he had drawn on it 
largely. His disappointment was therefore cruel 
when he heard that his account was definitely closed. 
He found himself again without money, and by a 
coincidence which must be mentioned, the diligence 
from Paris to Rouen was robbed, during his stay at 
Tournebut, in November, 1806, at the Mill of Mon- 
flaines, about a hundred yards from Authevernes, 
where the preceding attacks had taken place. The 
booty was not large this time, and when d'Ache again 
took the road to Mandeville his resources consisted of 
six hundred francs. 

He was obliged to spend the winter in torturing 
idleness ; there is no indication of his movements 
till February, 1807. The time fixed for the great 
events was drawing near, and it was important to 
make them known. He decided on the plan of a 
manifesto which was to be widely circulated through 
the whole province, and would not allow any one to 
assist in drawing it up. This proclamation, written 
in the name of the princes, stipulated a general 
amnesty, the retention of those in authority, a re- 
duction of taxation, and the abolition of conscription. 
Lanoe, summoned to Mandeville, received ten louis 
and the manuscript of the manifesto, with the order 
to get it printed as secretly as possible. The crafty 



92 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Norman promised, slipped the paper into the lining 
of his coat, and after a fruitless — and probably very- 
feeble — attempt on a printer's apprentice at Falaise, 
returned it to Flierle, with many admonitions to be 
prudent, but only refunded five louis. Flierle first 
applied to a bookseller in the Froide Rue at Caen. 
The latter, as soon as he found out w^hat it contained, 
refused his assistance. 

An incident now occurred, the importance of which 
it is difficult to discover, but which seems to have 
been great, to judge from the mystery in which it is 
shrouded. Whether he had received some urgent 
communication from England, or whether, in his 
state of destitution, he had thought of claiming the 
help of his friends at Tournebut, d'Ache despatched 
Flierle to Mme. de Combray, and gave him two 
letters, advising him to use the greatest discretion. 
Flierle set out on horseback from Caen in the morn- 
ing of March 13th. At dawn next day he arrived at 
Rouen, and immediately repaired to the house of a 
Mme. Lambert, a milliner in the Rue de I'Hopital, to 
whom one of the letters was addressed. "I gave it 
to her," he said, " on her staircase, without speaking 
to her, as I had been told to do, and set out that very 
morning for Tournebut, where I arrived between two 
and three o'clock. I gave Mme. de Combray the 
other letter, which she threw in the fire after having 
read it." 

Flierle slept at the chateau. Next day Bonnoeil 
conducted him to Louviers, and there intrusted a 
packet of letters to him addressed to d'Ache. Both 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 93 

directed their steps to Rouen, and the German fetched 
from the Rue de I'Hopital, the milliner's reply, which 
she gave him herself without saying a word. 

He immediately continued his journey, and by 
March 20th was back at Mandeville, and placed the 
precious mail in d'Ache's hands. The latter had 
scarcely read it before he sent David word to get his 
boat ready, and without losing a moment, the letters 
which had arrived from Rouen were taken out to sea 
to the English fleet, to be forwarded to London. 

We are still ignorant of the contents of these 
mysterious despatches, and inquiry on this point is 
reduced to supposition. Some pretended that d'Ache 
sent the manifesto to Mme. de Combray, and that it 
was clandestinely printed in the cellars at Tournebut j 
others maintain that towards March 15th Bonnoeil 
returned from Paris, bringing with him the corre- 
spondence of the secret royalist committee which was 
to be sent to the English Cabinet via Mandeville. 
D'Ache certainly attached immense importance to 
this expedition, which ought, according to him, to 
make the princes decide on the immediate despatch 
of funds, and to hasten the preparation for the attack 
on the island of Tahitou. But days passed and no 
reply came. In the agony of uncertainty he decided 
to approach Le Chevalier, whom he only knew by 
reputation as being a shrewd and resolute man. The 
meeting took place at Trevieres towards the middle 
of April, 1807. Le Chevalier brought one of his 
aides-de-camp with him, but d'Ache came alone. 

The names of these two men are so little known, 



94 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

they occupy such a very humble place in history, that 
we can hardly imagine, now that we know how 
pitifully their dreams miscarried, how without being 
ridiculous they could fancy that any result whatever 
could come of their meeting. The surroundings 
made them consider themselves important : d'Ache 
was — or thought he was — the mouthpiece of the 
exiled King ; as for Le Chevalier, whether from vain- 
glory or credulity he boasted of an immense popu- 
larity with the Chouans, and spoke mysteriously of 
the royalist committee which, working in Paris, had 
succeeded, he said, in rallying to the cause men of 
considerable importance in the entourage of the Em- 
peror himself. 

Since he had been Mme. Acquet's adored lover, Le 
Chevalier's visits to the Cafe Hervieux had become 
rarer; his parasites had dispersed, and although he 
still kept up his house in the Rue Saint-Sauveur at 
Caen, he spent the greater part of his time either at 
Falaise or at La Bijude, where his devoted mistress 
alternately lived. The police of Count Cafferelli, 
Prefect of Calvados, had ceased keeping an eye on 
him, and he even received a passport for Paris, 
whither he went frequently. He always returned 
more confident than before, and in the little group 
amongst whom he lived at Falaise — consisting of his 
cousin, Dusaussay, two Chouan comrades, Beaupaire 
and Desmontis ; a doctor in the Frotte army. Rev- 
erend; and the Notary of the Combray family, 
Maitre Febre — he was never tired of talking in 
confidence about the secret Royalist Committee, and 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE 95 

the near approach of the Restoration. The revolu- 
tion which was to bring it about, was to be a very 
peaceful one, according to him. Bonaparte, taken 
prisoner by two of his generals, each at the head of 
40,000 men, was to be handed over to the English 
and replaced by " a regency, the members of which 
were to be chosen from among the senators who 
could be trusted." The Comte d'Artois was then to 
be recalled — or his son, the Due de Berry — to take 
possession of the kingdom as Lieutenant-General. 

Did Le Chevalier believe in this Utopia ? It has 
been said that in propagating it " he only sought to 
intoxicate the people and excite them to acts of pil- 
lage, the profits of which would come to him without 
any of the danger." This accusation fits in badly 
with the chivalrous loyalty of his character. It 
seems more probable that on one of his journeys to 
Paris he fell into the trap set by the spy Perlet who, 
paid by the princes to be their chief intelligence 
agent, sold their correspondence to Fouche and 
handed over to the police the royalists who brought 
the letters. This Perlet had invented, as a bait for 
his trap, a committee of powerful persons who, he 
boasted, he had won over to the royal cause, and 
doubtless Le Chevalier was one of his only too 
numerous victims. Whatever it was, Le Chevalier 
took a pride in his high commissions, and went to 
meet d'Ache as an equal, if not a rival. 

At the beginning, the conference was more than 
cold. These two men, so different in appearance 
and character, both aspired to play a great part and 



96 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

were instinctively jealous of each other. Their own 
personal feelings divided them. One was the lover 
of Mme. Acquet de Ferolles, the other was the 
friend of Mme. de Combray, and the latter blamed 
her daughter for her misconduct, and had forbidden 
her ever to come back to Tournebut. Le Chevalier, 
after the usual civilities, refused to continue the con- 
versation till he was informed of the exact nature of 
the powers conferred by the King on his interlocutor, 
and the authority with which he was invested. Now, 
d'Ache had never had any written authority, and 
arrogantly intrenched himself behind the confidence 
which the princes had shown in him from the very 
first days of the revolution. He stated that he was 
expecting a regular commission from them. Where- 
upon Le Chevalier, seizing the advantage, called him 
an " agent of the English," and placing his pistols on 
the table " invited him to blow out his brains imme- 
diately." They both grew calmer, however, and ex- 
plained their plans. Le Chevalier knew most of the 
Norman Chouans, either from having fought by their 
side, or from having made their acquaintance in the 
various prisons in Caen or Evreux, wherein he had 
been confined. He therefore undertook the enroll- 
ment and management of the army, the command of 
which he would assign to two men who were devoted 
to him. The name of one is not published ; they 
say he was an ex-chief of Staff to Charette. The 
other was famous through the whole revolt of the 
Chouans under the pseudonym of General Antonio; 
his real name was Allain, and he had been working 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACH£ 97 

with Le Chevalier since the year IX. The latter 
was sure also of the cooperation of his friend M. de 
Grimont, manager of the stud at Argentan, who 
would furnish the prince's army with the necessary 
cavalry ; besides which he offered to go to Paris for 
the " great event," and took upon himself with the 
assistance of certain accomplices " to secure the im- 
perial treasury." D'Ache, for his part, was to go to 
England to fetch the King, and was to preside over 
the disembarkation and lead the Russo-Swedish army 
through insurgent Normandy to the gates of the 
capital. 

Their work thus assigned, the two men parted 
allies, but not friends. D'Ache was offended at Le 
Chevalier's pretensions ; the latter returning to Mme, 
Acquet, did not disguise the fact that, in his opinion, 
d'Ache was nothing but a common intriguer and an 
agent of England. 

There still remained the question of money which, 
for the moment, took precedence of all others. They 
had agreed that it was necessary to pillage the coffers 
of the state whilst waiting the arrival of subsidies 
from England, but neither d'Ache nor Le Chevalier 
expressed himself openly ; each wished to leave the 
responsibility of the theft to the other. Later, they 
both obstinately rejected it, Le Chevalier affirming 
that d'Ache had ordered the stopping of public con- 
veyances in the King's name, while d'Ache disowned 
Le Chevalier, accusing him of having brought the 
cause Into disrepute by employing such means. The 
dispute is of little interest. The money was lacking, 



98 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

and not only were the royal coffers empty, but what 
was of more immediate importance, Le Chevalier and 
his friends were without resources. In consequence 
of leading a wild life and sacrificing himself for his 
party, he had spent his entire fortune, and was over- 
whelmed with debts. The lawyer Vanier, who was 
entrusted with the management of his business affairs, 
lost his head at the avalanche of bills, protests and 
notes of hand which poured into his office, and which 
it was impossible to meet. The lawyer Lefebre, a fat 
and sensual free-liver, was equally low in funds, and 
laid on the government the blame of the confusion 
into which his affairs had fallen, though it had been 
entirely his own fault. As for Le Chevalier himself, 
he attributed his ruin, not without justice, to his dis- 
interestedness and devotion to the royal cause, which 
was his excuse for the past and the future. Mme. 
Acquet, who loved him blindly, had given her last 
louis to provide for his costly liberality. Touching 
letters from her are extant, proving how attached she 
was to him : 

" I am herewith sending you a letter from Mme. 
Blins " (a creditor). " My only regret is that I have 
not the sum. It would have given me great pleasure 
to pay it for you, and then you would never have 
known. ... I love you with all my heart. I 
am entirely yours, and there is nothing I would not 
do for you. . . . Love me as I love you. I 
embrace you tenderly." 

" There is nothing I would not do for you," — and 
the poor woman was wretched in the knowledge that 



THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHfi 99 

the hero whom she idolised was hampered for want 
of small sums of money. She could not ward off the 
trouble, since her demand for a separation had re- 
cently been refused. Acquet was triumphant. She 
was reduced to Hving on a modest pension of 2,000 
francs, and not able to sell what she had inherited 
from her father. One evening, when she and Lanoe 
were alone in the Hotel de Combray, in the Rue du 
Tripot at Falaise, one part of which was rented to 
the collector of taxes, she heard through the wall the 
chinking of the money, which they were packing into 
bags. On hearing it she fell into a sort of delirium, 
thinking that here was the wherewithal to satisfy her 
lover's fancies. . . . 

" Lanoe," she said suddenly, " I must have some 
money ; I only want 10,000 francs." 

The terrified Lanoe gave her no answer then, but 
a few days later, when he was driving her back in her 
cabriolet to Falaise from La Bijude, she returned to 
the charge, and gave him a piece of yellow wax 
wrapped up in cotton telling him to go and take an 
impression of the tax collector's lock as soon as they 
arrived at the Rue du Tripot. Lanoe excused him' 
self, saying that the house belonged to M. Timoleon, 
and that disagreeable consequences might arise. But 
she insisted. " I must have the impression," she 
said. " I do not tell you why I want it, but I will 
have it." Lanoe, to get out of a task he did not 
like, went away and secretly took an impression of 
the lock of the hayloft. A key was made by this 
pattern, and when night came the Marquise de Com- 



U. ul 



100 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

bray's daughter stole down — holding her breath and 
walking noiselessly — to the tax collector's office, and 
vainly tried to open the door. 

About the same time Le Chevalier, who had just 
returned from a journey to Paris, heard from the 
lawyer Vanier, who was quite as much in debt as his 
client, that the pecuniary situation was desperate. 
" I dread," wrote Vanier, " the accomplishment of the 
psalm : Unde veniet auxilium nobis quia perimus." 
To which Le Chevalier replied, as he invariably did : 
" In six weeks, or perhaps less, the King will be 
again on his throne. Brighter days will dawn, and 
we shall have good posts. Now is the time to show 
our zeal, for those who have done nothing will, as is 
fair, have nothing to expect." He added that the 
hour was propitious, " since Bonaparte was in the 
middle of Germany with his whole army." 

He loved to talk this way, as it made him appear, 
as it were. Napoleon's rival, raising him to the place 
he held in his own imagination. 



CHAPTER V 

THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 

The lawyer, Lefebre, of high stature, with broad 
shoulders and florid complexion, loved to dine well, 
and spent his time between billiards, " Calvados " and 
perorations in the cafes. For taking this part in the 
conspiracy he expected a fat sinecure on the return of 
the Bourbons, in recompense for his devotion. 

Early in April, 1807, Lefebre and Le Chevalier 
were dining together at the Hotel du Point-de-France 
at Argentan. They had found Beaurepaire, Des- 
montis and the Cousin Dusaussay there ; they went 
to the cafe and stayed there several hours. Allain, 
called General Antonio, whom Le Chevalier had 
chosen as his chief lieutenant, appeared and was pre- 
sented to the others. Allain was over forty ; he had 
a long nose, light eyes, a face pitted with smallpox, 
and a heavy black beard ; the manner of a calm and 
steady bourgeois. Le Chevalier took a playing card, 
tore half of it off, wrote a line on it and gave it to 
Allain, saying, " This will admit you." They talked 
awhile in the embrasure of a window, and the lawyer 
caught these words : " Once in the church, you will 
go out by the door on the left, and there find a lane ; 
it is there. ..." 

When Allain had gone Le Chevalier informed his 

loi 



102 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

friends of the affair on hand. At the approach of 
each term, funds were passed between the principal 
towns of the department ; from Alen^on, Saint-L6 
and Evreux money was sent to Caen, but these ship- 
ments took place at irregular dates, and were gener- 
ally accompanied by an escort of gendarmes. As the 
carriage which took the funds to Alen^on usually 
changed horses at Argentan, it was sufficient to know 
the time of its arrival in that town to deduce there- 
from the hour of its appearance elsewhere. Now Le 
Chevalier had secured the cooperation of a hostler 
named Gauthier, called " Boismale," who was bribed 
to let Dusaussay know when the carriage started. 
Dusaussay lived at Argentan, and by starting immedi- 
ately on horseback, he could easily arrive at the place 
where the conspirators were posted several hours 
before the carriage. Allain had just gone to find 
Boismale. 

When he returned to the cafe, he gave the result 
of his efforts. The hostler had decided to help Le 
Chevalier, but the affair would probably not take 
place for six weeks or two months, which was longer 
than necessary to collect the little troop needed for 
the expedition. The roles were assigned : Allain was 
to recruit men ; the lawyer would procure guns 
wherewith to arm them ; and besides this he allowed 
Allain to use a house in the Faubourg Saint-Laurent 
de Falaise, which he was commissioned to sell. Here 
could be established " a depot for arms and provi- 
sions," for one difficulty was to lodge and feed the re- 
cruits during the period of waiting. Le Chevalier 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 103 

answered for the assistance of Mme. Acquet de 
Ferolles, whom he easily persuaded to hide the men 
for a few days at least ; he also offered as a meeting- 
place his house in the Rue de Saint-Sauveur at Caen. 
The chief outlines of the affair being thus arranged, 
they parted, and the next day Allain took the road, 
having with him as usual, a complete surveyor's out- 
fit, and a sort of diploma as " engineer" which served 
as a reference, and justified his continual moves. He 
was, moreover, a typical Chouan, determined and 
ready for anything, as able to command a troop as to 
track gendarmes ; bold and cunning, he knew all the 
malcontents in the country, and could insure their 
obedience. The recruiting of this troop, armed, 
housed and provided for during two months, roaming 
the country, hiding in the woods, leading in the en- 
virons of Caen and Falaise the existence of Mohicans, 
without causing astonishment to a single gendarme, 
and, satisfied with having enough to eat and to drink, 
never thinking of asking what was required of them, 
is beyond belief. And it was in the most brilliant 
year of the imperial regime, at the apogee of the much 
boasted administration, which in reality was so hol- 
low. The Chouans had sown such disorganisation 
in the West, that the authorities of all grades found 
themselves powerless to struggle against this ever-re- 
curring epidemic. Count Caffarelli, prefet of Cal- 
vados, in his desire to retain his office, treated the re- 
fractories with an indolence bordering on complicity, 
and continued to send Fouche the most optimistic re- 
ports of the excellent temper of his fellow-citizens 



104 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

and their inviolable attachment to the imperial con- 
stitution. 

It was the middle of April, 1807. Allain passed 
through Caen, where he joined Flierle, and both of 
them hiding by day and marching at night, gained the 
borders of Brittany. Allain knew where to find men ; 
twenty-five leagues from Caen, in the department of 
La Manche, some way from any highroad, is situated 
the village of La Mancelliere, whose men were all 
refractories. General Antonio, who was very popu- 
lar among the malcontents, was shown the house of a 
woman named Harel whose husband had joined the 
sixty-third brigade in the year VIH and deserted six 
months after, " overcome by the desire to see his wife 
and children." His story resembled many others ; con- 
scription was repugnant to these peasants of ancient 
France, who could not resign themselves to losing 
sight of their clock tower; they were brave enough 
and ready to fight, but to them, the immediate enemy 
was the gendarmes, the " Bleus," whom they saw in 
their villages carrying off the best men, and they felt 
no animosity against the Prussians and Austrians who 
only picked a quarrel with Bonaparte. 

As he came with an off'er of work to be well paid 
for, Allain was well received by Mme. Harel, who 
with her children was reduced to extreme poverty. It 
was a question, he said, " of a surveying operation 
authorised by the government." Harel came out of 
hiding in the evening, and eagerly accepted his old 
chiePs proposition, and as the latter needed some 
strong pole-carriers, Harel presented two friends to 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 105 

the " General " under the names of " Grand-Charles " 
and " Coeur-de-Roi." Allain completed his party by 
the enrollment of three others, Le Hericey, called 
"La Sagesse '* ; Lebree, called " Fleur d'Epine"; 
and Le Lorault, called " La Jeunesse." They drank 
a cup of cider together, and left the same evening, 
Allain and Flierle leading them. 

In six stages they arrived at Caen, and Allain took 
them to Le Chevalier's house in the Rue Saint Sauveur. 
They had to stay there three vi^eeks. They vv^ere 
put in the loft on some hay, and Chalange, Le 
Chevalier's servant, vi^ho took them their food, alvt^ays 
found them sleeping or playing cards. In order not 
to awaken the suspicions of the usual tradespeople, 
Lerouge, called " Bornet," formerly a baker, under- 
took to make the bread for the house in the Rue 
Saint-Sauveur. One day he brought in his bread cart 
four guns procured by Lefebre ; Harel cleaned them, 
took them to pieces, and hid them in a bundle of 
straw. Then the guns were put on a horse which 
Lerouge led out at night from the cellar which opened 
on the Rue Quimcampoix at the back of the house. 
The men followed, and under Allain's guidance 
crossed the town ; when they reached the extremity 
of the Faubourg de Vaucelles they stopped and dis- 
tributed the arms. Lerouge went back to town with 
the horse, and the little troop disappeared on the high- 
road. 

At about five leagues from Caen, after having 
passed Langannerie, where a brigade of gendarmerie 
was stationed, the Falaise road traverses a small but 



io6 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

dense thicket called the wood of Quesnay. The men 
stopped there, and passed a whole day hidden among 
the trees. The following night Allain led them a 
three hours' march to a large abandoned house, whose 
doors were open, and installed them in the loft on 
some hay. This was the Chateau of Donnay. 

Le Chevalier had not deceived himself. Mme. 
Acquet had received his suggestion with enthusiasm ; 
the thought that she would be useful to her hero, that 
she would share his danger, blinded her to all other 
considerations. She had offered Allain and his com- 
panions the hospitality of Bijude, without any fear of 
compromising her lover, who made long sojourns 
there, and she decided on the audacious plan of lodg- 
ing them with her husband, who, inhabiting a wing 
of the Chateau of Donnay, abandoned the main body 
of the chateau, which could be entered from the back 
without being seen. Perhaps she hoped to throw a 
suspicion of complicity on Acquet if the retreat should 
be discovered. As to Le Chevalier, learning that 
d'Ache had just left Mandeville and gone to England 
" after having announced his speedy return with the 
prince, with munitions, money, etc.," he left for Paris, 
having certain arrangements, he said, to make with 
the " Comite secret." Before quitting La Bijude, he 
enjoined his mistress, in case the coup should be made 
in his absence, to remit the money seized to Dusaus- 
say, who would bring it to him in Paris where the 
committee awaited it. She gave him a curl of her 
fine black hair to have a medallion made of it, and 
made him promise " that he would not forget to bring 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 107 

her some good eau-de-cologne.** They then em- 
braced each other, and he left. It was May 17, 
1807, and this was the last time she saw him. 

She did not remain idle, but herself prepared the 
food of the seven men lodged in the chateau. 
Bundles of hay and straw served them for beds ; 
they were advised not to go out, even for the most 
pressing needs and they stayed there ten days. Every 
evening Mme. Acquet appeared in this malodorous 
den, holding her parasol in her gloved hands, dressed 
m a light muslin, and a straw hat. She was usually 
accompanied by her servant Rosalie Dupont, a big 
strong girl, and Joseph Buquet a shoemaker at Don- 
nay both carrying large earthen plates containing 
baked veal and potatoes. It was the hour of kindli- 
ness and good cheer ; the chatelaine did not disdain to 
preside at the repast, coming and going among the 
unkempt men, asking if these " good fellows ** needed 
anything and were satisfied with their fare. She was 
the most impatient of all ; whether she took the po- 
litical illusions of those who had drawn her into the 
affair seriously, and was anxious to expose herself for 
" the good cause *' ; whether her fatal passion for La 
Chevalier had completely blinded her, she took her 
share in the attack that was being prepared, which it 
seemed to her, would put an end to all her misfor- 
tunes. She had already committed an act of foolish 
boldness in receiving and keeping^ Allain's recruits in 
a house occupied by her husband, and in daring to 
visit them there herself; she was thus compromising 
herself, as if she enjoyed it, under the eyes of her 



io8 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

most implacable enemy, and no doubt Acquet, in- 
formed by his well-trained spies, of all that happened, 
refrained from intervention for fear of interrupting 
an adventure in v^hich his wife must lose herself 
irremediably. 

Mme. Acquet also behaved as if she was certain 
of the complicity of the whole country ; she ar- 
ranged the slightest details of the expedition with 
astonishing quickness of mind. With her own hands 
she made large wallets of coarse cloth, to carry pro- 
visions for the party, and contain the money taken 
from the chests. She hastened to Falaise to ask 
Lefebre to receive Allain and Flierle while awaiting 
the hour of action. Lefebre who had already fixed 
his price and exacted a promise of twelve thousand 
francs from the funds, would only, however, half 
commit himself. He nevertheless agreed to lodge 
Allain and Flierle in the vacant building in the Fau- 
bourg Saint-Laurent. Reassured on this point Mme. 
Acquet returned to Donnay ; during the night of 28th 
May, the men left the chateau without their arms and 
were conducted to a barn, where they were left all 
day alone with a small cask of cider which they soon 
emptied. Mme. Acquet was meanwhile preparing 
another retreat for them. A short way from the 
Church of Donnay there was an isolated house be- 
longing to the brothers Buquet, who were devoted to 
the Combrays ; Joseph, the shoemaker, had in the 
absence of Le Chevalier, been known as Mme. 
Acquet's lover in the village, and if In the absence of 
any definite testimony, it is possible to save this poor 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 109 

woman's memory from this new accusation, we must 
still recognise the fact that she exercised an extraor- 
dinary influence over this man. He submitted to her 
blindly " by the rights she had granted him," said a 
report addressed to the Emperor. Whatever the 
reason, she had only to say the word for Joseph 
Buquet to give her his house, and the six men took 
possession next day. The Buquets' mother under- 
took to feed them for four days ; they left her at dusk 
on the 2d June ; Joseph showed them the road and 
even led them a short way. 

The poor fellows dragged along till morning, los- 
ing themselves often and not daring to ask the way 
or to follow beaten tracks. They met Allain at 
dawn, one mile from Falaise, on the edge of a wood 
near the hamlet of Jalousie; he took them across 
Aubigny to an isolated inn at the end of the 
village. 

Lefebre had presented Allain to the innkeeper the 
night before, asking if he would receive " six honest 
deserters whom the gendarmes tormented," for a few 
days, and the man had replied that he would lodge 
them with pleasure. 

As soon as they arrived at the inn Allain and his 
men, dropping with fatigue, asked for breakfast and 
went at once to the room prepared for them. It was 
half past four in the morning ; they lay down on the 
straw and did not move all day except for meals. 
The night and all next day passed in the same man- 
ner. On Thursday June 4th they put some bread, 
bacon and jugs of cider in their wallets and left about 



no THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

nine in the evening. On Friday Allain appeared at 
the inn of Aubigny alone ; he ordered the servant to 
take some food to the place where the Caen and Har- 
court roads met. Two men were waiting there, who 
took the food and went off in haste. Allain went to 
bed about two in the morning j about midday on 
Saturday as he was sitting down to table a carriage 
stopped at the inn door; Lefebre and Mme. Acquet 
got out. They brought seven guns which were 
carried up to the loft. They talked ; Mme. Acquet 
took some lemons from a little basket, and cut them 
into a bowl filled with white wine and brandy, and 
she and Lefebre drank while consulting together. 
The heat was intolerable and all three were overcome. 
Mme. Acquet had to be helped to her carriage and 
Lefebre undertook to conduct her to Falaise. Allain, 
left alone at Aubigny, ordered supper " for six or 
seven persons." He was attending to its preparation 
when a horseman appeared and asked to speak with 
him. It was Dusaussay who brought news. He 
had come straight from Argentan where he had seen 
the coach, laden with chests of silver, enter the yard 
of the inn of Point-de-France ; he described the 
waggon, the harness and the driver, then remounted 
and rode rapidly away. Just then the entire band re- 
appeared, led by Flierle. Arms were distributed, and 
the men stood round the table eating hastily. They 
filled their wallets with bread and cold meat and left 
at night. Allain and Flierle accompanied them and 
returned to the inn after two hours' absence. They 
did not sleep ; they were heard pacing heavily up and 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY iii 

down the loft until daylight. On Sunday, June 7, 
Allain paid the reckoning, bought a short axe and an 
old gun from the innkeeper, making eight guns in 
all at the disposal of the band. At seven in the 
morning he left with Flierle, and three leagues from 
there, arrived at the wood of Quesnay where his men 
had passed the night. 

The waggon destined for the transportation of the 
funds had been loaded on the 5th at Alen^on, in the 
yard of the house of M. Decres, receiver-general of 
the Orne, with five heavy chests containing 33,489 
francs, 92 centimes. On the 6th, the carrier, Jean 
Gousset, employed by the manager of stage coaches 
at Alen^on, had harnessed three horses to it, and 
escorted by two gendarmes had taken the road to 
Argentan, where he arrived at five in the evening. 
He stopped at Point-de-France, where he had to take 
a sixth chest containing 33,000 francs, which was 
delivered in the evening by the agents of M. Larroc, 
receiver of finances. The carriage, carefully covered, 
remained in the inn yard during the night. Gousset, 
who had been drinking, went to and fro "talking to 
every one of his charge " ; he even called a traveller, 
M. Lapeyriere, and winking at the chest that was 
being hoisted on the waggon, said : " If we each had 
ten times as much our fortunes would be made." He 
harnessed up at four o'clock on Sunday, the 7th. He 
had been given a fourth horse, aiid three gendarmes 
accompanied him. They made the five leagues be- 
tween Argentan and Falaise rather slowly, arriving 
about half past ten. Gousset stopped with Bertaine 



112 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

at the " Cheval Noir," where the gendarmes left 
him; he dined there, and as it was very hot, rested 
till three in the afternoon, during which time the 
waggon stayed in front of the inn unguarded. It was 
noticed that the horses were harnessed three hours 
before starting, and the conclusion was drawn that 
Gousset did not want to arrive before night at 
Langannerie, where he would sleep. In fact, he took 
his time. At a quarter past three he started, without 
escort, as all the men of the brigade of Falaise were 
employed in the recruiting that took place that day. 
As he left the village he chanced to meet Vinchon, 
gendarme of the brigade of Langannerie, who was 
returning home on foot with his nephew, a young boy 
of seventeen, named Antoine Morin. They engaged 
in conversation with the carrier, who walked on the 
left of the waggon, and went with him. These 
chance companions were in no hurry, and Gousset 
did not appear to be in any haste to arrive. At the 
last houses of the suburbs he offered some cider; 
after some hundred yards the gendarme returned the 
compliment and they stopped at the " Sauvage." A 
league further, another stop was made at the " Vieille 
Cave." Gousset then proposed a game of skittles, 
which the gendarme and Morin accepted. It was 
nearly seven in the evening when they passed Potigny. 
The evening was magnificent and the sun still high 
on the horizon; as they knew they would not see 
another inn until the next stage was reached, they 
made a fourth stop there. At last Gousset and his 
companions started again ; they could now reach 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 113 

Langannerie in an hour, where they would stop for 
the night. 

The evening before, Mme. Acquet de Ferolles, 
returning to Falaise with Lefebre, had gone to bed 
more sick with fatigue than drink j however, she had 
returned to Donnay at dawn in the fear that her 
absence might awaken suspicion. This Sunday, 
the 7th June, was indeed the Fete-Dieu, and she 
must decorate the wayside altars as she did each 
year. 

Lanoe, who had arrived the evening before from 
his farm at Glatigny, worked all the morning hanging 
up draperies, and covering the walls with green 
branches. Mme. Acquet directed the arrangements 
for the procession with feverish excitement, filling 
baskets with rose leaves, grouping children, placing 
garlands. Doubtless her thoughts flew from this 
flowery fete to the wood yonder, where at this 
minute the men whom she had incited waited under 
the trees, gun in hand. Perhaps she felt a perverse 
pleasure in the contrast between the hymns sung 
among the hedges and the criminal anxiety that 
wrung her. Did she not confess later that in the 
confusion of her mind she had not feared to call on 
God for the success of " her enterprise" ? 

When, about five o'clock, the procession was at an 
end, Mme. Acquet went through the rose-strewn 
streets to find her confidante, Rosalie Dupont. Such 
was her impatience that she soon left this girl, 
irresistibly drawn to the road where her own fate and 



114 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

that of her lover were being decided. Lanoe, who 
was returning to Glatigny in the evening, was sur- 
prised to meet the chatelaine of La Bijude in a little 
wood near Clair-Tizon. She was scarcely a league 
from the place where the men were hidden. From 
her secluded spot she could, with beating heart, 
motionless and mute with anguish, hear the noise of 
shooting, which rung out clear in the silence of 
the summer evening. It was exactly a quarter to 
eight. 

The waggon had, indeed, left Potigny at seven 
o'clock. A little way from the village, the road, 
which had been quite straight for six leagues, de- 
scended a low hill at the foot of which is the wood of 
Quesnay, a low thicket of hazel, topped by a few 
oaks. Allain had posted his men along the road 
under the branches ; on the edge of the wood towards 
Falaise stood Flierle, Le Hericey, and Fleur d'Epine. 
Allain himself was with Harel and Coeur-le-Roi, at 
the end nearest Langannerie. Grand-Charles and 
Le Lorault were placed in the middle of the wood at 
equal distances from these two groups. 

The eight men had waited since midday for the 
appearance of the treasure. They began to lose 
patience and spoke of returning to Aubigny for supper 
when they heard the rumbling of the waggon descend- 
ing the hill. It came down rapidly, Gousset not 
having troubled to put on the brake. They could hear 
him shouting to the horses. Walking on the left of 
the waggon he drove them by means of a long rope; 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 115 

his little dog trotted beside him. Vinchon and Morin 
were, for the moment, left behind by the increased 
speed of the waggon. The men at the first and 
second posts allowed it to pass without appearing ; it 
was now between the two thickets through which the 
road ran ; in a few minutes it attained the edge of the 
wood near Langannerie, when suddenly, Gousset saw 
a man in a long greatcoat and top-boots in the middle 
of the road, with his gun pointed at him ; it was 
Allain. 

" Halt, you rascal ! " he cried to the carrier. 

Two of his companions, attired only in drawers 
and shirt, with a coloured handkerchief knotted round 
the head, came out of the wood, shouldered arms and 
took aim. With a tremendous effort, Gousset, seized 
with terror, turned the whole team to the left, and 
with oaths and blows flung it on to a country road 
which crossed the main road obliquely a little way 
from the end of the wood. But in an instant the 
three men were upon him ; they threw him down and 
held a gun to his head while two others came out of 
the wood and seized the horses' heads. The strug- 
gle was short; they tore off Gousset's cravat and 
bound his eyes with it, he was searched and his knife 
taken, then cuffed, pushed into the wood and prom- 
ised a ball if he moved. 

But Vinchon and Morin, who were behind, had 
seen the waggon disappear in the wood. Morin, not 
caring to join in the scuffle, hurried across the fields, 
turned the edge of the wood, and ran towards Langan- 
nerie to inform the gendarmes. Vinchon, on the 



ii6 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

contrary, drew his sabre and advanced towards the 
road, but he had only taken a few steps when he re- 
ceived a triple discharge from the first post. He fell, 
with a ball in his shoulder, and rolled in the ditch, his 
blood flowing. The men then hastened to the 
waggon; they cut the cords of the tarpaulin with 
Gousset's knife, uncovered the chests and attacked 
them with hatchets. Whilst two of the brigands un- 
harnessed the horses, the others flung the money, 
handfuls of gold and crowns, pell-mell into their 
sacks. The first one, bursting with silver, was so 
heavy that it took three men to hoist it on to the 
back of a horse; Gousset himself, in spite of his 
bandaged eyes, was invited to lend a hand and obeyed 
gropingly. They were smashing the second chest 
when the cry, " To arms ! " interrupted them. Allain 
rallied his men, and lined them up along the road. 

Morin, on arriving at Langannerie had only found 
the corporal and one other gendarme there; they 
mounted immediately and galloped to the wood of 
Quesnay. It was almost night when they reached 
the edge of the wood. A volley of shots greeted 
them ; the corporal was hit in the leg, and his horse 
fell mortally wounded ; his companion, who was deaf, 
did not know which way to turn. Seeing his chief 
fall, he thought it best to retreat ; and ran to the 
hamlet of Quesnay to get help. The noise of the 
firing had already alarmed the neighbourhood ; the 
tocsin sounded at Potigny, Ouilly-le-Tesson and 
Sousmont ; peasants flocked to each end of the wood, 
but they were unarmed and dared not advance. Al- 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 117 

lain had posted five of his men as advance-guard who 
fired in the thicket at their own discretion, and kept 
the most determined of the enemy at bay. Behind 
this curtain of shooters the noise could be heard of 
axes breaking open chests, planks torn apart and oaths 
of the brigands in haste to complete their pillage. 
This extraordinary scene lasted nearly an hour. At 
last, at a call, the firing ceased, the robbers plunged 
into the thicket, and the steps of the heavily-laden 
horse, urged on by the men, were heard disappearing 
on the crossroad. 

They took the road to Ussy, with their booty and 
the carrier Gousset, still with his eyes bandaged and 
led by Grand-Charles. They travelled fast, at night 
—to avoid pursuit. Less than half a league from 
Quesnay the road they followed passed the hamlet of 
Aisy, on the outskirts of Sousmont, whose mayor had 
a chateau there. He was called M. Dupont d'Aisy, 
and had this very evening entertained Captain Pinte- 
ville, commander of the gendarmerie of the district. 
The party had been broken up by the distant noise of 
shooting. M. Dupont at once sent his servants to 
give the alarm at Sousmont ; in less than an hour he 
had mustered thirty villagers and putting himself at 
their head with Captain Pinteville he marched towards 
Quesnay. They had not gone a hundred paces when 
they encountered Allain's men, and the fight began. 
The brigands kept up a well-sustained fire, which 
produced no other effect than to disperse the peasants. 
Dupont d'Aisy and Captain Pinteville himself con- 
sidered it dangerous to continue the struggle against 



ii8 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

such determined adversaries j they retired their men, 
and resolutely turning their backs to the enemy re- 
treated towards Quesnay. 

When they arrived in the wood a crowd was al- 
ready there ; from the neighbouring villages where 
the tocsin still sounded, people came, drawn entirely 
by curiosity. They laughed at the fine trick played 
on the government, they thought the affair well man- 
aged, and did not hesitate to applaud its success. 
They surrounded the waggon, half-sunk in the ruts in 
the road, and searched the little wood for traces of the 
combat. 

The arrival of the mayor and Captain Pinteville 
restored things to order somewhat. They had 
brought lanterns, and in the presence of the gen- 
darmes who had now arrived in numbers, the peasants 
collected the remains of the chests, and replaced in 
them the coppers that the robbers had scornfully 
thrown in the grass. They found the carrier's 
leather portfolio containing the two bills of lading, in 
the thicket, and learned therefrom that the govern- 
ment had lost a little over 60,000 francs, and in face 
of this respectable sum, their respect for the men who 
had done the deed increased. In the densest part of 
the wood they found a sort of hut made of branches, 
and containing bones, empty bottles and glasses, and 
the legend immediately grew that the brigands had 
lived there " for weeks," waiting for a profitable oc- 
casion. Those who had taken part in the fight from 
a distance described " these gentlemen," who num- 
bered twelve, they said ; three wore grey overcoats 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 119 

and top-boots ; another witness had been struck " by 
the exceeding smallness of two of the brigands.'* 

At last, the money collected and put in the chests, 
they harnessed two horses to the waggon and took it to 
the mayor's. He was now unsparing of attention j 
he did not leave the waggon which was put in his yard, 
and locked up the broken chests and money which 
amounted to 5,404 francs. And when M. le Comte 
CafFarelli, prefet of Calvados arrived at dawn, he 
was received by Dupont-d'Aisy, and after having 
heard all the witnesses and received all information 
possible, he sent the minister of police one of the 
optimistic reports that he prepared with so much 
assurance. In this one he informed his Excellency 
that " after making examination the shipment had 
been found intact, except the chests containing the 
government money." M. CafFarelli knew to perfec- 
tion the delicate art of administrative correspondence 
and with a great deal of cool water, could slip in the 
gilded pill of disagreeable truth. 

This model functionary spent the day at Aisy wait- 
ing for news ; the peasants and gendarmes scoured 
the country with precaution, for, since the night, the 
legend had grown and it was told, not without fear, 
how M. Dupont d'Aisy had courageously given battle 
to an army of brigands. About midday the searchers 
returned leading the four horses which they had found 
tied to a hedge near the village of Placy, and poor 
Gousset who was found calmly seated in the shade 
of a tree near a wheat-field. He said that the band 
had left him there very early in the morning after 



120 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

having made him march all night with bandaged eyes. 
At the end of an hour and a half, hearing nothing, he 
had ventured to unfasten the bandage, and not know- 
ing the country, had waited till some one came to 
seek him. He could give no information respecting 
the robbers, except that they marched very fast and 
gave him terrible blows. M. CafFarelli commiserated 
the poor man heartily, charged him to take the waggon 
and smashed chests back to Caen, then, after having 
warmly congratulated M. Dupont d'Aisy on his fine 
conduct, he returned home. 

After the scuffle at Aisy, Allain and his companions 
had marched in haste to Donnay, but missed their 
way. Crossing the village of Saint-Germain-le- 
Vasson, they seized a young miller who was taking the 
air on his doorstep, and who consented to guide them, 
though very much afraid of this band of armed men 
with heavily-laden wallets. He led them as far as 
Acqueville and Allain sent him away with ten crowns. 
It was nearly midnight when they reached Donnay ; 
they passed behind the chateau where Joseph Buquet 
was waiting for them and led them to his house. He 
and his brother made the eight men enter, enjoined 
silence, helped them to empty their sacks into a hole 
that had been made at the end of the garden, then 
gave them a drink. After an hour's rest Allain gave 
the signal for departure. He was in haste to get 
his men out of the department of Calvados, and 
shelter them from the first pursuit of CafFarelli's 
police. At daybreak they crossed the Orne by 
the bridge of La Landelle, threw their guns Into a 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 121 

wheat-field and separated after receiving each 200 
francs. 

This day, the 8th June, passed in the most perfect 
calm for the inhabitants of Donnay. Mme. Acquet 
did not leave La Bijude. In the afternoon a tanner 
of Placy, called Brazard, passed the house and called 
to Hebert whom he savi^ in the garden. He told him 
that u'hen he got up that morning he had found four 
horses tied to his hedge. The gendarmes from Lan- 
gannerie had come and claimed them saying " they 
belonged to the Falaise-Caen coach which had been 
attacked in the night by Chouans." Hebert was much 
astonished; Mme. Acquet did not believe it; but the 
report spread and by evening the news was known to 
the whole village. 

Acquet had remained invisible for a month ; his 
instinct of hatred and some information slyly ob- 
tained, warned him that his wife was working her 
own ruin, and he would do nothing to stop her good 
work. Some days before, Aumont, his gardener, had 
remarked one morning that the dew was brushed off 
the grass of the lawn, and showed footsteps leading 
to the cellar of the chateau, but Acquet did not seem 
to attach any importance to these facts. 

He learned from his servant of the robbery of the 
coach. The next day, Redet, the butcher of Meslay, 
said that ten days previously, when he was passing 
the ruins of the Abbey of Val " his mare shied, 
frightened at the sight of seven or eight men, who 
came out from behind a hedge ; " they asked him the 
way to Rouen. Redet, without answering, made off, 



122 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

and as he told every one of this encounter, Hebert 
the liegeman of Mme. de Combray, had instantly 
begged him not to spread it about. If Acquet had 
retained any doubt, this would have satisfied him. 
He hurried to Meslay to consult vi^ith his friend 
Darthenay, and the next day, he wrote to the com- 
mandant of gendarmerie inviting him to search the 
Chateau of Donnay. 

The visit took place on Friday, I2th June, and was 
conducted by Captain Pinteville. Acquet offered to 
guide him, and the search brought some singular dis- 
coveries. Certain doors of this great house, long 
abandoned, were found with strong locks recently put 
on ; others were nailed up and had to be broken in. 
" In a dark, retired loft that it was difficult to enter" 
(Acquet conducted the gendarmes) " a pile of hay 
still retained the impress of six men who had slept on 
it ; some fresh bones, scraps of bread and meat, and 
the dirt bore witness that the band had lived there ; 
some sheets of paper belonging to a memoir printed 
by Hely de Bonnoeil, brother of Mme. Acquet were 
rolled into cartridges and hidden in a corner under the 
tiles. They also found the sacks that the Buquets 
had hidden there after the theft ; in the floor of the 
cellar a hole, " two and a half feet square, and of the 
same depth had been dug to hold the money ; " they 
had taken the precaution to tear up the flooring above 
so that the depot could be watched from there. The 
idea of hiding the treasure here had been abandoned, 
as we know, in favour of Buquets' ; but the discovery 
was important and Pinteville drew up a report of it. 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 123 

But things went no further. What suspicion could 
attach to the owners of Donnay ? The brigands, it 
is true, had made use of their house, but there were 
no grounds for an accusation of complicity in that. 
Neither Pinteville nor CafFarelli, who transmitted the 
report to the minister, thought of pushing their en- 
quiries any further. 

Fouche knew no more about it, but he thought that 
the affair was being feebly conducted. It seemed 
evident that the attempt at Quesnay would swell the 
already long list of thefts of public funds, by those 
who would forever remain unpunished. Real, in- 
stinctively scenting d'Ache in the business, remem- 
bered Captain Manginot who at the time of Georges 
Cadoudal's plot, had succeeded in tracing the stages 
of the conspirators between Biville and Paris, and to 
whom they owed the discovery of the role played by 
d'Ache in the conspiracy. 

Manginot then received an order to proceed to 
Calvados immediately. On the 23d June he arrived 
at CafFarelli's bearing this letter of introduction : 
" The skill, the zeal and good fortune of this officer 
in these cases, is well known ; they were proved in a 
similar affair, and I ask you to welcome him as he 
deserves to be welcomed." The prefet was quite 
willing ; he knew too well the habits of the Chouans, 
and their cleverness in disappearing to have any per- 
sonal illusions as to the final result of the adventure, 
but he said nothing and on the contrary showed the 
greatest confidence in the dexterity of a man who 
stood so well at court. 



124 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Manginot began with a fresh search at Donnay ; 
and, as his reputation obliged him to be successful, 
and as he was not unwilling to astonish the author- 
ities of Calvados by the quickness of his perceptions, 
he caused Acquet de Ferolles to be arrested. It was 
he who had first warned the gendarmes of the sojourn 
of the brigands at Donnay, and this seemed exceed- 
ingly suspicious J the same day he gave the order to 
take Hebert. Several people in the village insinuated 
that Acquet and Hebert were irreconcilable enemies 
and that Manginot was on the wrong track ; but the 
detective's head was now swelled with importance 
and he would not draw back. Following his extrava- 
gant deductions he decided that the complicity of 
Gousset, convicted of drinking and playing skittles 
the whole way, was undoubted, and the poor man was 
arrested in his village where he had returned to his 
wife and children to recover from his excitement. 
At last Manginot, evidently animated by his blunders, 
took it into his head that Dupont d*Aisy himself 
might well have kept Pinteville at dinner and excited 
the peasants in order to secure the retreat of the 
brigands, and issued a warrant against him to the 
stupefaction of CafFarelli who thus saw imprisoned 
all those whose conduct he had praised, and whom 
he had given as examples of devotion. Thus, in 
a region where he had only to touch, so to say, to 
catch a criminal. Captain Manginot was unlucky 
enough to incarcerate only the innocent, and to com- 
plete the irony, these innocent prisoners made such a 
poor face before the court of enquiry that his sus- 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 125 

picions were justified. Acquet was very anxious to 
denounce his wife, but he would not speak without 
certainty and the magistrate before whom he appeared 
at Falaise notes that in the course of interrogations 
"he contradicted himself; his replies were far from 
satisfactory, though he arranged them with the great- 
est care and reflected long before speaking." At the 
first insinuation he made against Mme. de Combray 
and her daughter, the judge indignantly silenced him, 
and sent him well-guarded to Caen where he was put 
in close custody. As to Hebert, not wishing to com- 
promise the ladies of La Bijude to whom he was 
completely devoted, he scarcely replied to the ques- 
tions put to him ; all, even to Dupont d'Aisy lent 
themselves to the suspicions of Manginot. Sixty 
guns were found at the mayor's house, which seemed 
an excessive number, even for the great sportsman he 
prided himself on being, and here again all indications 
tended to convince Manginot that he was on the 
right track. 

Mme. Acquet, meanwhile feigned the greatest se- 
curity. Seeing things straying from the right way, 
she might indeed imagine that she was removed from 
all danger, and she had besides, other anxieties. The 
Chevalier had been waiting in Paris since the 7th of 
June for the money he so urgently needed, and as 
nothing appeared in spite of his reiterated demands, 
he decided to come and fetch it himself; he did not 
dare, however, to appear near Falaise, so arranged a 
meeting at Laigle with Lefebre, earnestly entreating 
him to bring him all the money he possibly could. 



126 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

But the Buquets, with whom the 60,000 francs had 
been left on the 7th June, obstinately refused to give 
it up in spite of Mme. Acquet's entreaties ; they 
had removed the money from their garden and hidden 
it in various places which they jealously kept secret. 
However, through her influence over Joseph, Mme. 
Acquet succeeded in obtaining 3,300 francs which she 
gave the lawyer to take to Le Chevalier, but Lefebre, 
as soon as he got hold of the money, declared that he 
had been promised 12,000 francs for his assistance, 
and that he would keep this on account. He went 
to meet Le Chevalier at Laigle however, and to calm 
his impatience told him that Dusaussay was going to 
start for Paris immediately with 60,000 francs which 
he would give him intact. Mme. Acquet was des- 
perate; prudence forbade her trying to overcome the 
Buquets' obstinacy, and they, in order to keep the 
money, asserted that it belonged to the royal ex- 
chequer, and they were responsible for it ; so the un- 
happy woman found that she had committed a crime 
that the obstinacy of these rapacious peasants ren- 
dered useless. She was ready to abandon all in order 
to rejoin Le Chevalier, ready even to expatriate her- 
self with him, when they heard that Mme. de Com- 
bray, hearing rumours of what had happened in Lower 
Normandy, had decided to come to Falaise, to plead 
the cause of her farmer, Hebert. She had left 
Tournebut on the 13th July and taken the Caen 
coach to Evreux. 

Mme. Acquet had gone to Langannerie to meet 
her mother, and when Mme. de Combray descended 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 127 

from the coach the young woman threw herself into 
her arms. As the Marquise seemed rather surprised 
at this display of feeling to which she had become un- 
accustomed, her daughter said in a low voice, sobbing : 

" Save me, mama, save me ! " 

Mother and daughter resumed the affectionate con- 
fidence of former days. While the horses were being 
changed and the postillions were taking a drink in the 
inn, they seated themselves beneath a tree near the 
road. Mme. Acquet made a full confession. She 
told how her love for Le Chevalier had led her to join 
in the affair of June yth, to keep Allain and his men, 
and to hide the stolen money with the Buquets. If 
it should be found there she was lost, and it was im- 
portant to get it from the Buquets and send it to the 
leaders of the party for whom it was intended. She 
did not dare to mention Le Chevalier this time, but 
she argued that for fear of her husband's spies she 
could neither take the money to her own house, nor 
change it at any bankers in Caen and Falaise; the 
whole country knew she was reduced to the last e?^- 
pedients. 

Mme. de Combray feared no such dangers, and 
considered that " no one would be astonished to see 
50,000 or 60,000 francs at her disposal." But she 
approved less of some other points in the affair, not 
that she was astonished to find her daughter com- 
promised in such an adventure, for how many similar 
ones had she not helped to prepare in her Chateau 
of Tournebut ? Had she not inoculated her daughter 
with her political fanaticism in representing men like 



128 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Hingant de Saint-Maur, Raoul Gaillard and Saint- 
Rejant as martyrs ? And by what right could she be 
severe, when she herself, daughter of the President of 
the Cour des Comptes of Normandy, had been ready 
to join in a theft which, "the sanctity of the cause,'* 
rendered praiseworthy in her eyes ? The Marquise 
de Combray, without knowing it, was a Jacobite re- 
versed ; she accepted brigandage as the terrorists 
formerly accepted the guillotine ; the hoped-for end 
justified the means. 

And so she did not pour out reproaches ; she grew 
angry at the mention of Le Chevalier whom she 
hated, but Mme. Acquet calmed her with the assur- 
ance that her lover had acted under the express orders 
of d'Ache and that everything had been arranged be- 
tween the two men. As long as her hero was con- 
cerned in the afFair, Mme. de Combray was happy to 
take a hand. That evening she reached Falaise, and 
leaving her daughter in the Rue du Tripot, she asked 
hospitality from one of her relations, Mme. de 
Treprel. Next morning she sent for Lefebre. Mme. 
Acquet, before introducing him, coached him thus, 
" Say as little as possible about Le Chevalier, and in- 
sist that d'Ache arranged everything." On this 
ground Lefebre found Mme. de Combray most con- 
ciliating, and he had neither to employ prayers nor 
entreaties, to obtain her promise to get the 60,000 
francs from the Buquets ; " she consented without 
any difficulty or adverse opinion ; she seemed very 
zealous and pleased at the turn things had taken, and 
offered herself to take the money to Caen, and lodge 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 129 

it with Nourry, d' Ache's banker." Mme. Acquet 
here observed that she was not at liberty to dispose of 
the funds thus. She had only taken part in the affair 
from love, and cared little for the royalist exchequer ; 
she only cared that her devotion should profit the man 
she adored, and if the money was sent to d'Ache, all 
her trouble would be useless. She tried to insist, say- 
ing that Dusaussay would take the money to the roy- 
alist treasurer in Paris, that Le Chevalier was waiting 
for it in order to go to Poitou where his presence was 
indispensable. But Mme. de Combray was inflexible 
on this point; the entire sum should be delivered to 
d'Ache's banker, or she would withdraw her assistance. 
Mme. Acquet was obliged to yield with a heavy heart, 
and they began at once to consider the best means of 
transporting it. The Marquise sent Jouanne, the son 
of the old cook at Glatigny, to tell Lanoe that she 
wished to see him at once. Jouanne made the six 
leagues between Falaise and Glatigny at one stretch, 
and returned without taking breath, with Lanoe, who 
put him up behind him on his horse. They had 
scarcely arrived when Mme. de Combray ordered 
Lanoe to get a carriage at Donnay and prepare for a 
journey of several days. Lanoe objected a little, said 
it was harvest time, and that he had important work 
to finish, but all that mattered little to the Marquise, 
who was firm and expected to be obeyed. Mme. 
Acquet also insisted saying, " You know that mama 
only feels safe when you drive her and that you arc 
always well paid for it." This decided Lanoe who 
started for Bijude where he slept that night. Mme. 



130 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

de Combray did not spare her servants, and distance 
was not such an obstacle to those people, accustomed 
to marching and riding, as it is nowadays. This 
fact will help to explain some of the incidents that 
are to follow. 

On Thursday, July i6th, Lanoe returned to Falaise 
with a little cart that a peasant of Donnay had lent 
him, to which he had harnessed his horse and another 
lent him by Desjardins, one of Mme. de Combray's 
farmers. The two women got in and started for La 
Bijude, Lefebre accompanying them to the suburbs. 
He arranged a meeting with them at Caen two days 
later, and gave them a little plan he had drawn which 
would enable them to avoid the more frequented 
highroad. 

Mme. de Combray and her daughter slept that 
night at La Bijude. The next day was spent in 
arguing with the Buquets who did not dare to resist 
the Marquise's commands, and at night they delivered, 
against their will, two sacks containing 9,000 francs 
in crowns which she caused to be placed in the cart, 
which was housed in the barn. It was impossible to 
take more the first time, and Mme. Acquet rejoiced, 
hoping that the rest of the sum would remain at her 
disposal. The Marquise had judged it prudent to 
send Lanoe away to the fair at Saint-Clair which was 
held in the open country about a league away, and 
they only saw him again at the time fixed for their 
departure on Saturday. He has left an account of the 
journey, which though evidently written in a bad 
temper, is rather picturesque. 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 131 

" I returned from the fair,'* he says, " towards one 
o'clock in the afternoon, and while I was harnessing 
the horses I saw a valise and night bag in the car- 
riage. Colin, the servant at La Bijude, threw two 
bundles of straw in the carriage for the ladies to sit 
on, and Mme. de Combray gave me a portmanteau, a 
package which seemed to contain linen, and an 
umbrella to put in the carriage. On the road I made 
the horses trot, but Mme. Acquet told me not to go 
so fast because they didn't want to arrive at Caen 
before evening, seeing that they had stolen money in 
the carriage. I looked at her, but said nothing, but I 
said to myself : ' This is another of her tricks ; if I 
had known this before we started I would have left 
them behind ; she used deceit to compromise me, not 
being able to do so openly.' When I reproached her 
for it some days later she said : ' I suspected that if I 
had told you of it, you would not have gone.' Dur- 
ing the journey the ladies talked together, but the 
noise of the carriage prevented me from hearing what 
they said. However, I heard Mme. Acquet say that 
this money would serve to pay some debts or to give 
to the unfortunate. I also heard her say that Le 
Chevalier had great wit, and Mme. de Combray re- 
plied that M. d'Ache's wit was keener; that Le 
Chevalier had perhaps a longer tongue. . . ." 

The itinerary arranged by Lefebre, left the main 
road at Saint-Andre-de-Fontenay near the hamlet of 
Basse-Allemagne ; night was falling when Lanoe's 
carriage crossed the Orne at the ferry of Athis. 
From there they went to Bretteville-sur-Odon in or- 



132 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

der to enter the town as if they had come from Vire 
or Bayeux. The notary had arrived during the day 
at Caen, and after having left his horse at the inn at 
Vaucelles, he crossed the town on foot and went to 
meet " the treasure " on the Vire road. Just as eight 
was striking he reached the first houses in Bretteville 
and was going to turn back, astonished at not meet- 
ing the cart when Mme. Acquet called to him from a 
window. He entered ; Mme. de Combray and her 
daughter had stopped there while Lanoe was having 
one of the wheels mended. They took some re- 
freshment, rested the horses and set out again at ten 
o'clock. Lefebre got in with them and when they 
arrived at Granville he got down and paid the duty 
on the two bundles of straw that were in the waggon, 
and then entered the town without further delay. 

By the notary's advice they had decided to take the 
money to Gelin's inn, in the Rue Pavee. Gelin was 
the son-in-law of Lerouge, called Bornet, whom Le 
Chevalier sometimes employed, but the waggon was 
too large to get into the courtyard of the inn ; some 
troops had been passing that day and the house was 
filled with soldiers. They could not stay there, but 
had to leave the money there, and while Gelin 
watched, the Marquise, uneasy at finding herself in 
such a place, unable to leave the yard because the 
waggon stopped the door, had to assist in unloading it. 
Two men were very busy about the waggon, one of 
them held a dark lantern ; Lefebre, Lerouge and even 
Mme. Acquet pulled the sacks from the straw and 
threw them into the house by a window on the ground 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 133 

floor. Mme. de Combray seemed to feel her deca- 
dence for the first time ; she found herself mixed up 
in one of those expeditions that she had until then 
represented as chivalrous feats of arms, and these by- 
ways of brigandage filled her with horror. 

" But they are a band of rascals," she said to Lanoe, 
and she insisted on his taking her away ; she was 
obliged to pass through the inn filled with men drink- 
ing. At last, outside, without turning round she 
went to the Hotel des Trois Marchands, opposite 
Notre-Dame, where she usually stayed. 

Mme. Acquet had no such qualms; she supped 
with the men, and in the night had a mysterious in- 
terview with Allan behind the walls of Notre-Dame. 
Where Mme. Acquet slept that night is not known ; 
she only appeared at the Hotel des Trois Marchands 
four days later, where she met Mme. de Combray 
who had just returned from Bayeux. In her need of 
comfort the Marquise had tried to see d'Ache and find 
out if it were true that AUain had acted according to 
his orders, but d'Ache had assured his old friend that 
he disapproved of such vile deeds, and that " he was 
still worthy of her esteem." She had returned to Caen 
much grieved at having allowed herself to be deceived 
by her daughter and the lawyer ; she told them noth- 
ing of her visit to Bayeux, except that she had not 
seen d'Ache and that he was still in England ; then, 
quite put out, she returned to Falaise in the coach, 
not wanting to travel with her daughter. Mme. 
Acquet, the same day, — Thursday the 23d July — took 
a carriage that ran from Caen to Harcourt and got 



134 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

down at Forge-a-Cambro where Lanoe, who had re- 
turned to Donnay on Monday, was waiting, with his 
waggon. 

As soon as she was seated Lanoe informed her that 
the gendarmes had gone to Donnay and searched the 
Buquets' house, but left without arresting any one ; 
" a man in a long black coat was conducting them.'' 
Mme. Acquet asked several questions, then told 
Lanoe to whip up the horses and remained silent until 
they reached La Bijude; he observed her with the 
corner of his eye, and saw that she was very pale. 
When they arrived at the village she went immedi- 
ately to the Buquets and remained a quarter of an 
hour closeted with Joseph. No doubt she was ma- 
king a supreme effort to get some money from him ; 
she reappeared with heightened colour and very ex- 
cited. " Quick, to Falaise," she said. But Lanoe 
told her he had something to do at home, and that his 
horse could not be always on the go. But she wor- 
ried him until he consented to take her. 

While the horse was being fed Mme. Acquet went 
to La Bijude and threw herself on the bed, fully 
dressed. The day had been very heavy and towards 
evening lightning flashed brightly. About two in the 
morning Lanoe knocked on the window and Mme. 
Acquet appeared, ready to start. She got up behind 
him, and they took the road by the forest of Saint- 
Clair and Bonnoeil, and when they were going 
through the wood the storm burst with extraordinary 
violence, huge gusts bent the trees, breaking the 
branches, the rain fell in torrents, changing the road 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 135 

to a river; the horse still advanced however, but to- 
wards day, when approaching the village of Noron, 
Mme. Acquet suddenly felt such violent indisposition 
that she fell to the ground in a faint. Lanoe laid her 
on the side of the road in the mud. When she came 
to herself she begged him to leave her there, and 
hasten to Falaise and bring back Lefebre; she seemed 
to be haunted by the thought of the man in the black 
overcoat who had guided the gendarmes at Donnay. 
Lanoe, in a great fright, obeyed, but Lefebre could 
not come before afternoon ; at Noron they found 
Mme. Acquet in an inn to which she had dragged 
herself. The poor woman was in a fever, and almost 
raving she told Lefebre that she had no money to 
give him ; that the gendarmes had been to Donnay ; 
that the man who showed them the way was proba- 
bly one of Allain's companions, but that she feared 
nothing and was going there to bring back the 
money. 

Lefebre tried to calm her, but when he left after 
half an hour's talk, she tried Lanoe, begging him to 
take her back to Donnay; he resisted strongly, not 
wanting to hear any more of the affair, but at last he 
softened at her despair, but swore that now he had 
had enough of it, and would leave her at La Bijude. 
She agreed to all, climbed on the horse, and taking 
Lanoe round the waist as before, her dripping gar- 
ments clinging to her shivering forni, she started again 
for Donnay. When passing Villeneuve, a farm be- 
longing to her brother Bonnoeil she saw a group of 
women gesticulating excitedly ; the farmer Truffault 



136 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

came up and in response to her anxious enquiries, 
replied : 

" A misfortune has taken place ; the gendarmes 
have been to the Buquets, and taken the father, 
mother and eldest son. Joseph, who hid himself, is 
alone and very unhappy." 

The farmer added that he had just sent his boy to 
Falaise to inform Mme. de Combray of the event. 
Mme. Acquet got off her horse, drew TrufFault aside 
and questioned him in a low voice. When she re- 
turned to Lanoe she was as white as a wax candle. 
" I am lost," she said, " Joseph Buquet will denounce 
me. 

Then, with a steady look, speaking to herself: " I 
could also, in my turn denounce Allain, seeing»that he 
is an outlaw, but where should I say I had met him ? " 
She seemed most uneasy, not knowing what to do. 
Then she hinted that she must go back to Ealaise. 
But Lanoe was inflexible, he swore he would go no 
further, and that she could apply to the farmer if she 
wanted to. And giving his horse the rein he went 
off at a trot, leaving her surrounded by the peasants, 
who silently gazed in wondering consternation at the 
daughter of " their lady " covered with mud, wild- 
eyed, her arms swinging and her whole appearance so 
hopeless and forlorn as to awaken pity in the hardest 
heart. 

The same evening the lawyer Lefebre, learned on 
reaching home, that Mme. de Combray had sent her 
gardener to ask him to come to her immediately in 
the Rue du Tripot. But worn out, he threw him- 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 137 

self on his bed and slept soundly till some one 
knocked at his door about one in the morning. It 
was the gardener again, who was so insistent that 
Lefebre decided to go with him in spite of fatigue. 
He found the Marquise wild with anxiety. Truf- 
fault's boy had told her of the arrest of the Buquets, 
and she had not gone to bed, expecting to see the 
gendarmes appear j her only idea was to fly to Tour- 
nebut and hide herself there with her daughter ; she 
begged the lawyer to accompany them, and while ex- 
citedly talking, tied a woollen shawl round her head. 
Lefebre, who was calmer, told her that he had left 
Mme. Acquet at Noron in a state of exhaustion, that 
they must wait until she was in a condition to travel 
before starting, and that It would be impossible to ob- 
tain a carriage at this time of night. But Mme. de 
Combray would listen to nothing ; she gave her gar- 
dener three crowns to go to Noron and tell Mme. 
Acquet that she must start immediately for Tournebut 
by Saint-Sylvain and Lisleux; then traversing the de- 
serted streets with Lefebre, who stopped at his house 
to get the three thousand francs, from the robbery of 
June 7th, she reached the Val d'Ante and took the 
road to Caen. 

It was very dark ; the storm had ceased but the 
rain still fell heavily. The old Marquise continued 
her journey over the flooded roads, defying fatigue 
and only stopping occasionally to make sure she was 
not followed. Lefebre, now afraid also, hastened his 
steps beside her, bending beneath the weight of his 
portmanteau filled with crowns. Neither spoke. 



138 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

The endless road was the same one taken by the 
waggon containing the Alen^on money on the day of 
the robbery, and the remembrance of this rendered 
their wild night march still more tragic. 

It was scarcely dawn when the fugitives crossed 
the wood of Quesnay ; at Langannerie they left the 
highroad and crossed by Bretteville-le-Rabet. It 
was now broad daylight, barns were opening, and 
people looked astonished at this strange couple who 
seemed to have been walking all night; the Marquise 
especially puzzled them, with her hair clinging to her 
cheeks, her skirts soaked and her slippers covered 
with mud. But no one dared question them. 

At six in the morning Mme. de Combray and her 
companion arrived at Saint-Sylvain, five good leagues 
from Falaise. If Mme. Acquet had succeeded in 
leaving Noron they ought to meet her there. Lefebre 
enquired at the inn, but no one had been there. 
They waited for two hours which the lawyer em- 
ployed in seeking a waggon to go on to Lisieux. A 
peasant agreed to take them for fifteen francs paid in 
advance, and about eight o'clock, as Mme. Acquet 
had not arrived they decided to start. They stopped 
at Croissanville a little further on, and while break- 
fasting, Lefebre wrote to Lanoe telling him to find 
Mme. Acquet at once and tell her to hasten to her 
mother at Tournebut. 

The rest of the journey was uneventful. They 
reached Lisieux at supper-time and slept there. The 
next day Mme. de Combray took two places under an 
assumed name, in the coach for Evreux, where they 



THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY 139 

arrived in the evening. The fugitives had a refuge in 
the Rue de TUnion with an old Chouan named 
Vergne, who had been in orders before the Revolu- 
tion, but had become a doctor since the pacification. 
Next day Mme. de Combray and Lefebre made five 
leagues from Evreux to Louviers ; they got out before 
entering the town as the Marquise wished to avoid 
the Hotel du Mouton where she was known. They 
went by side streets to the bridge of the Eure where 
they hired a carriage which took them by nightfall to 
the hamlet of Val-Tesson. They were now only a 
league from Tournebut which they could reach by 
going through the woods. . But would they not find 
gendarmes there ? Mme. de Combray's flight might 
have aroused suspicion at Falaise, Caen and Bayeux, 
and brought police supervision to her house. It was 
nine in the evening when, after an hour's walk, she 
reached the Hermitage. She thought it prudent to 
send Lefebre on ahead, and accompanied him to the 
gate where she left him to venture in alone. All ap- 
peared tranquil in the chateau, the lawyer went into 
the kitchen where he found a scullery maid who 
called Soyer, the confidential man, and Mme. de Com- 
bray only felt safe when she saw the latter himself 
come to open a door into the garden ; she then 
slipped, without being seen, into her own room. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE YELLOW HORSE 

The man in the " black overcoat " who had con- 
ducted the gendarmes on their visit to Donnay, was 
no other than " Grand-Charles," one of Allain's fol- 
lowers. He had been arrested at Le Chalange on 
July 14th, and had consented without hesitation, to 
show the spot in the Buquets' garden where the 
money had been hidden. He recognised the position 
of the house and garden, the room in which Allain 
and his companions had been received on the night 
of the robbery, and even the glass which Mme. 
Buquet had filled for him. At the bottom of the 
garden traces of the excavation that had contained the 
money were found ; the loft contained linen, and 
other effects of Mme. Acquet; her miniature was 
hanging on the wall of Joseph's room. Joseph alone 
had fled ; his father, mother, and brother were taken 
to prison in Caen the same evening. 

" Grand-Charles," who did not want to be the 
only one compromised, showed the greatest zeal in 
searching for his accomplices. As Querelle had 
done before, he led Manginot and his thirty gen- 
darmes over all the country, until they reached the 
village of Mancelliere, which passed as the most 
famous resort of malcontents in a circuit of twenty 

140 



THE YELLOW HORSE 141 

leaoues. As in the happiest days of the Chouan 
revolt, there were bloody combats between the gen- 
darmes and the deserters. After one of these engage- 
ments Pierre-Francois Harel, — who had passed most 
of his time since the Quesnay robbery in a barrel 
sunk in the earth at the bottom of a garden — was ar- 
rested in the house of a M. Lebougre, where he had 
gone to get some brandy and salt to dress a wound. 
But Manginot made a more important capture in 
Flierle, who was living peacefully at Amaye-sur- 
Orne, with one of his old captains, Rouault des Vaux. 
Flierle told his story as soon as he was interrogated j 
he knew that " high personages " were in the plot, 
and thought they would think twice before pushing 
things to an issue. 

If Manginot was thus acting with an energy worthy 
of praise, he received none from Caffarelli, who was 
distressed at the turn affairs had taken, and wished 
that the affair of Quesnay might be reduced to the 
proportions of a simple incident. He interrogated 
the prisoners with the reserve and precaution of a 
man who was interfering in what did not concern 
him, and if he learned from Flierle much that he 
would rather not have known about the persistent 
organisation of the Chouans in Calvados, he could 
get no information concerning the deed that had led 
to his arrest. 

The German did not conceal his fear of assassin- 
ation if he should speak, Allain having promised, on 
June 8th, at the bridge of Landelle, " poison, or 
pistol shot to the first who should reveal anything, 



142 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

and the assistance of two hundred determined men to 
save those who showed discretion, from the venge- 
ance of Bonaparte." 

Things were different in Paris. The police were 
working hard, and Fouche was daily informed of the 
slightest details bearing on the events that were taking 
place in Lower Normandy. For several weeks de- 
tectives had been watching a young man who arrived 
in Paris the second fortnight of May ; he was often 
seen in the Palais-Royal, and called himself openly 
" General of the Chouans," and assumed great im- 
portance. The next report gave his name as Le 
Chevalier, from Caen, and more information was de- 
manded of Caffarelli. The Prefect of Calvados re- 
plied that the description tallied with that of a man 
who had often been denounced to him as an incor- 
rigible royalist; he was easy to recognise as he had 
lost the use of his left arm. 

The police received orders not to lose sight of this 
person. He lived at the Hotel de Beauvais, Rue des 
Vieux-Augustins, a house that had been known since 
the Revolution as the resort of royalists passing 
through Paris. Le Chevalier went out a great deal ; 
he dined in town nearly every night, with people of 
good position. He was followed for a fortnight; 
then the order for his arrest was given, and on July 
15th he was taken, handcuffed, to the prefecture of 
police and accused of participation in the robbery at 
Quesnay. 

Le Chevalier was not the man to be caught nap- 
ping. His looks, his manner and his eloquence had 



THE YELLOW HORSE 143 

got him out of so many scrapes, that he doubted not 
they would once more save his life. The letter he 
wrote to Real on the day of his arrest is so character- 
istic of him — at once familiar and haughty — that it 
would be a pity not to quote it : 

" Arrested on a suspicion of brigandage, of which it 
is as important to justify myself as painful to have to 
do it, but full of confidence in my honour, which is 
unimpeachable, and in the well-known justice of your 
character, I beg you to grant me a few minutes' audi- 
ence, during which — being well disposed to answer 
your questions, and even to forestall them — I flatter 
myself that I can convince you that the condition of 
my affairs and, above all, my whole conduct in life, 
raise me above any suspicion of brigandage whatever. 
I hope also, Monsieur, that this conversation, the 
favour of which your justice will accord me, will con- 
vince you that I am not mad enough to engage in 
political brigandage, or to engage in a struggle with 
the government to which the proudest sovereigns have 
yielded. . . . 

"A. Le Chevalier." 

And to prove that he had taken no part in the rob- 
bery of June 7th, he added to his letter twenty 
affirmations of honourable and well-known persons 
who had either seen or dined with him in Paris each 
day of the month from the ist to the 20th. Among 
these were the names of his compatriot, the poet 
Chenedolle, and Dr. Dupuytren whom he had con- 
sulted on the advisability of amputating the fingers of 
his left hand, long useless. He had even taken care 
to be seen at the Te Deum sung in Notre-Dame for 



144 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

the taking of Dantzig. His precautions had been 
well taken, and once again his aplomb was about to 
save him, when Real, much embarrassed by this soft 
spoken prisoner, thought of sending him to Caen, in 
the hope that confronting him with Flierle, Grand- 
Charles and the Buquets might have some result. 
CafFarelli was convinced that Le Chevalier was the 
leader in the plot, yet they had searched carefully in 
his house in the Rue Saint-Sauveur ; without finding 
anything but some private papers. Flierle had recog- 
nised him as the man to whom he acted as secretary 
and courier, yet Le Chevalier had contemptuously re- 
plied that " the German was not the sort to be his 
servant, and that their only connection was that of 
benefactor and recipient." It was out of the ques- 
tion that any tribunal could be found to condemn 
a man who on the day of the crime had been sixty 
leagues from the place where it was committed. As 
to convicting him as a royalist who approved of the 
theft of public funds — they might as well do the 
same with all Normandy. Besides, to CafFarelli, who 
had no allusions as to the sentiments of the district, 
and who was always in fear of a new Chouan explo- 
sion, the presence of Le Chevalier in prison at Caen 
was a perpetual nightmare. Allain might suddenly 
appear with an army, and make an attempt to carry 
off his chief similar to that which, under the Direc- 
tory, saved the lives of the Vicomte de Chambray 
and Chevalier Destouches, to the amusement and de- 
light of the whole province. And this is why the 
prudent prefect, not caring to encumber himself with 



THE YELLOW HORSE 145 

such a compromising prisoner, in four days, obtained 
Real's permission to send him back to Paris, where 
he was confined in the Temple. Ah ! What a fine 
letter he wrote to the Chief of Police, as soon as he 
arrived there, and how he posed as the unlucky rival 
of Napoleon ! 

This profession of faith is too long to be given en- 
tirely, but it throws such light on the character of the 
writer, and on the illusions which the royalists obsti- 
nately fostered during the most brilliant period of the 
imperial regime, that a few extracts are indispensable. 

" You wished to know the truth concerning the 
declarations of Flierle on my account, and on the 
projects that he divulged. I will tell you of them. 
Denial suits well a criminal who fears the eye of jus- 
tice, but it is foreign to a character that fears nothing 
and to whom the first success of his enterprises lies 
in the esteem of his enemies. 

" Your Excellency will kindly see in me neither a 
man trembling at death, nor a mind seduced by the 
hope of reward. I ask nothing to tell what I think, 
for in telling it I satisfy myself. I planned an insur- 
rection against Napoleon's government, I desired his 
ruin, if I have not been able to effect it, it is because 
I have always been badly seconded and often betrayed. 

" What w-ere my means of entertaining at least the 
hope of success ? Not wishing to appear absolutely 
mad in your eyes, I am going to make them known ; 
but not wishing to betray the confidence of those who 
would have served me, I shall withhold the details. 

" I was born generous, and a lover of glory. After 
the amnesty of the year VHI I was the richest among 



146 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

my comrades : my money, well dispensed, procured 
me followers. For several years I watched for a 
favourable moment to revolt. The last campaign in 
Austria offered this occasion. Every one in the West 
believed in the defection of the French armies ; I did 
not believe in it, but was going to profit by the gen- 
eral opinion. Victory came too quickly, and I had 
hardly time to plan anything. 

"After having established connections in several 
departments, I left for Paris. There, all concurred in 
fortifying my hopes. Many republicans shared my 
wishes ; I negotiated with them for a reunion of 
parties, to make action more certain and reaction less 
strong. The movement must take place in the cap- 
ital, a provisional government must be established, — 
all France would have passed through a new regime 
before the Emperor returned. 

" But it did not take me long to discover that the re- 
publicans had not all the means they boasted. 
I returned to the royalists in the capital ; they were 
disunited and without plans. I had only a few men 
in Paris ; I abandoned my designs there, and returned 
to the provinces. There I could collect two or three 
thousand men, and as soon as I had done that I 
should have sent to ask the Bourbon princes to put 
themselves at the head of my troops. 

" But at the opening of the second campaign my 
plans were postponed. However, the measures I had 
been obliged to take could not remain secret. Some 
refractory conscripts, some deserters, appeared armed, 
at different places ; they had to be maintained, and 
without an order ad hoc^ but by virtue of general in- 
structions, one of my officers possessed himself of 
the public funds for the purpose. . . . The 
guilty ones are . . . myself, for whom I ask 
nothing, not from pride, for the haughtiest spirit need 



THE YELLOW HORSE 147 

not feel humiliated at receiving grace from one who 
has granted it to kings, but from honour. Your Ex- 
cellency will no doubt wish to know the motive that 
urged me to conceive and nourish such projects. 
The motive is this : I have seen the unhappiness of 
the amnestied, and my own misfortune j people pro- 
scribed in the state, classed as serfs, excluded not 
only from all employment, but also tyrannised by 
those who formerly only lacked the courage to join 
their cause. . . 

" Whatever fate is reserved for me, I beg you to 
consider that I have not ceased to be a Frenchman, 
that I may have succumbed to noble madness, but 
have not sought cowardly success ; and I hope that, 
in view of this, your Excellency will grant me the 
only favour I ask for myself — that my trial, if I am 
to have one, may be military, as well as its execu- 
tion. ... 

" A. Le Chevalier." 

One can imagine the stupefaction, on reading this 
missive of Fouche, of Real, Desmarets, Veyrat, and 
of all those on whom it rested to make his people ap- 
pear to the Master as enthusiastic and contented, or 
at least silent and submissive. They felt that the let- 
ter was not all bragging ; they saw in it Georges' plan 
amplified; the same threat of a descent of Bourbons 
on the coast, the same assurance of overturning, by a 
blow at Bonaparte, the immense edifice he had erected. 
In fact, the belief that the Empire, to which all 
Europe now seemed subjugated, was- at the mercy of 
a battle won or lost, was so firmly established in the 
mind of the population, that even a man like Fouche, 
for example, who thoroughly understood the under- 



148 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

currents of opinion, could never believe in the solidity 
of the regime that he worked for. Were not the 
germs of the whole story of the Restoration in Le 
Chevalier's profession of faith ? Were they not 
found again, five years later, in the astonishing con- 
ception of Malet ? Were things very different in 
1814? The Emperor vanquished, the defection of 
the generals, the descent of the princes, the interven- 
tion of a provisional government, the reestablishment 
of the monarchy, such were, in reality the events that 
followed ; they were what Georges had foreseen, what 
d'Ache had anticipated, what Le Chevalier had divined 
with such clear-sightedness. Though they seemed 
miraculous to many people they were simply the 
logical result of continued effort, the success of a con- 
spiracy in which the actors had frequently been 
changed, but which had suffered no cessation from the 
coup d'etat of Brumaire until the abdication at Fon- 
tainebleau. The chiefs of the imperial police, then, 
found themselves confronted by a new " affaire 
Georges." From Flierle's partial revelations and the 
little that had been learned from the Buquets, they in- 
ferred that d'Ache was at the head of it, and recom- 
mended all the authorities to search well, but quietly. 
In spite of these exhortations, Caffarelli seemed to 
lose all interest in the plot, which he had finally 
analysed as " vast but mad," and unworthy of any 
further attention on his part. 

The prefect of the Seine-Inferieure, Savoye-Rollin, 
had manifested a zeal and ardour each time that Real 
addressed him on the subject of the affair of Quesnay, 



THE YELLOW HORSE 149 

in singular contrast with the indifference shown by 
his colleague of Calvados. Savoye-Rollin belonged 
to an old parliamentary family. Being advocate-gen- 
eral to the parliament of Grenoble before 1790, he 
had adopted the more moderate ideas of the Revolu- 
tion, and had been made a member of the tribunate on 
the eighteenth Brumaire in 1806, at the age of fifty- 
two, he replaced Beugnot in the prefecture of Rouen. 
He was a most worthy functionary, a distinguished 
worker, and possessor of a fine fortune. 

Real left it to Savoye-Rollin to find d'Ache, who, 
they remembered, had lived at the farm of Saint-Clair 
near Gournay, before Georges' disembarkation, and 
who possessed some property in the vicinity of 
Neufchatel. The police of Rouen was neither better 
organised nor more numerous than that of Caen, but 
its chief was a singular personage whose activity made 
up for the qualities lacking in his men. He was a 
little, restless, shrewd, clever man, full of imagination 
and wit, frank with every one and fearing, as he him- 
self said, " neither woman, God nor devil." He was 
named Licquet, and in 1807 was fifty-three years old. 
At the time of the Revolution he had been keeper of 
the rivers and forests of Caudebec, which position he 
had resigned in 1790 for a post in the municipal ad- 
ministration at Rouen. In the year IV he was chief 
of the Bureau of Public Instruction, but in reality he 
alone did all the work of the mayoralty, and also 
some of that of the Department, and did it so well 
that he found himself, in 1802, In the post of secre- 
tary-in-chief of the municipality. In this capacity he 



ISO THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

gave and inspected all passports. For five years past 
no one had been able to travel in the Seine-Inferieure 
without going through his office. As he had a good 
memory and his business interested him, he had a 
very clear recollection of all whom he had scrutinised 
and passed. He remembered very well having signed 
the passport that took d'Ache from Gournay to Saint- 
Germain-en-Laye in 1803, and retained a good idea 
of the robust man, tall, with a high forehead and 
black hair. He remembered, moreover, that d'Ache's 
"toe-nails were so grown into his flesh that he walked 
on them." 

Since this meeting with d'Ache, Licquet's appoint- 
ments had increased considerably ; while retaining his 
place as secretary-general, he had obtained the direc- 
torship of police, and fulfilled his functions with so 
much energy, authority and cunning that no one 
dreamt of criticising his encroachments. He was, 
besides, much feared for his bitter tongue, but he 
pleased the prefect, who liked his wit and appreciated 
his cleverness. From the beginning Licquet was fas- 
cinated by the idea of discovering the elusive con- 
spirator and thus demonstrating his adroitness to the 
police of Paris; and his satisfaction was profound, 
when, on the 17th of August, 1807, three days after 
having arranged a plan of campaign and issued instruc- 
tions to his subordinates, he was informed that M. d' 
Ache was confined in the Conciergerie of the Palais 
de Justice. He rushed to the Palais and ordered the 
prisoner to be brought before him. It was " Tourlour," 
d' Ache's inoffensive brother Placide, arrested at Saint- 



THE YELLOW HORSE 151 

Denis-du-Bosguerard, where he had gone to visit his 
old mother. Licquet's disappointment was cruel, for 
he had nothing to expect from Tourlour j but to hide 
his chagrin he questioned him about his brother 
(whom Placide declared he had not seen for four 
years) and how he passed his time, which was spent, 
said Tourlour, when he was not in the Rue Saint- 
Patrice, between Saint-Denis-du-Bosguerard and Mme. 
de Combray's chateau near Gaillon. Placide declared 
that he only desired to live in peace, and to care for 
his aged and infirm mother. This was the second 
time Licquet's attention had been attracted by the name 
of Mme. de Combray. He had already read it, inci- 
dentally, in the report of Flierle's examination, and 
with the instinct of a detective, for whom a single 
word will often unravel a whole plot, he had a sudden 
intuition that in it lay the key to the entire afFair. 
Tourlour's imprudent admission, which was to bring 
terrible catastrophes on Mme. de Combray's head, 
gave Licquet a thread that was to lead him through 
the maze that CafFarelli had refused to enter. 

Nearly a month earlier, Mme. de Combray had 
expressly forbidden Soyer to talk about her return 
with Lefebre. She had shut herself up in her room 
with Catherine Querey, her chambermaid ; the lawyer 
had shared Bonnoeil's room. Next day, Tuesday, 
July 28th, the Marquise had shown Lefebre the 
apartments prepared for the King and the hiding- 
places in the great chateau ; Bonnoeil showed him 
copies of d' Ache's manifesto, and the Due d'Enghien's 
funeral oration, which they read, with deep respect. 



152 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

after dinner. Towards evening Soyer announced the 
postmaster of Gaillon, a friend who had often 
rendered valuable services to the people at Tourne- 
but. He had just heard that the commandant had 
received orders from Paris to search the chateau, and 
would do so immediately. Mme. de Combray was 
not at all disturbed; she had long been prepared for 
this, and ordered Soyer to take some provisions to the 
little chateau, where she repaired that night with 
Lefebre. There were two comfortable hiding-places 
there whose mechanism she explained to the lawyer. 
One of them was large enough to contain two 
mattresses side by side ; she showed Lefebre in, 
slipped after him, and shut the panels upon them 
both. Bonnoeil remained alone at Tournebut. The 
quiet life he had led for the last two years removed 
him from any suspicion, and he prepared to receive 
the gendarmes who appeared at dawn on Friday. The 
commandant showed his order, and Bonnoeil, confi- 
dent of the issue, and completely cool, opened all the 
doors and gave up the keys. The soldiers rummaged 
the chateau from top to bottom. Nothing could have 
been more innocent than the appearance of this great 
mansion, most of whose apartments seemed to have 
been long unoccupied, and Bonnoeil stated that his 
mother had gone a fortnight ago to Lower Normandy, 
where she went every year about this time to collect 
her rents and visit her property near Falaise. When 
the servants were interrogated they were all unanimous 
in declaring that with the exception of Soyer and Mile. 
Querey, they had seen the Marquise start for Falaise, 



THE YELLOW HORSE 153 

and did not know of her return. The commandant 
returned to Gaillon with his men, little suspecting 
that the woman he was looking for was calmly play- 
ing cards with one of her accomplices a few steps 
away, while they were searching her house. 

She lived with her guest for eight days in this 
house with the false bottom, so to speak, never 
appearing outside, wandering through the unfurnished 
rooms during the day, and returning to her hiding- 
place at night. 

They did not return to Tournebut till August 4th. 
The same day Soyer received a letter from Mme. 
Acquet, on the envelope of w^hich she had written, 
" For Mama.'* It was an answer to the letter sent 
to Croissanville by Lefebre. Mme. Acquet said that 
her mother's departure did her a great wrong, but that 
all danger was over and Lefebre could return to 
Falaise without fear. As for herself, she had found 
refuge with a reliable person ; the Abbe Moraud, vicar 
of Guibray, would take charge of her correspondence. 
Of the proposal which had been made her to take 
refuge at Tournebut, not a word. Evidently Mme. 
Acquet preferred the retreat she had chosen for her- 
self — where, she did not say. Mme. de Combray, 
either hurt at this unjustifiable defiance, or afraid that 
she would prove herself an accomplice In the theft if 
she did not separate herself entirely from Mme. 
Acquet, made her maid reply that it was " too late 
for her to come now, that she was very ill and could 
receive no one." And thus the feeling that divided 
these two women was clearly defined. 



154 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Lefebre undertook to give the letter to Abbe 
Moraud ; he was in a great hurry to return to 
Falaise, where he felt much safer than at Tourne- 
but. He left the same day, after having chosen a 
yellow horse from the stables of the chateau. He put 
on top-boots and an overcoat belonging to Bonnceil, 
and left by a little door in the wall of the park. Soyer 
led him as far as the Moulin des Quatre- Vents on the 
highroad. Lefebre took the Neubourg road so as to 
avoid Evreux and Louviers. Two days after, he 
breakfasted at Glatigny with Lanoe, leaving there his 
boots, overcoat, and the yellow horse, and started 
gaily for Falaise, where he arrived in the evening. 
He saw Mme. Acquet on the 7th, and found her 
completely at her ease. 

When Lanoe had abandoned her at the farm of 
Villeneuve, twelve days before, Mme. Acquet had 
entreated so pitifully that a woman who was there 
had gone to fetch Collin, one of the servants at La 
Bijude; Mme. de Combray's daughter had returned 
with him to Falaise, on one of the farmer's horses. 
She dared not go to the house in the Rue du Tripot, 
and therefore stopped with an honest woman named 
Chauvel, who did the washing for the Combray 
family. She was drawn there by the fact that the 
son, Victor Chauvel, was one of the gendarmes who 
had been at Donnay the night before, and she wanted 
to find out from him if the Buquets had denounced 
her. 

She went to the Chauvels' under pretence of get- 
ting Captain Manginot's address. The gendarme was 



THE YELLOW HORSE 155 

at supper. He was a man of thirty-six, an old hussar, 
and a good fellow, but although married and the father 
of three children, known as a " gadder, and fond of 
the sex." " When women are around, Chauvel for- 
gets everything," his comrades used to say. He now 
saw Mme. Acquet for the first time, and to her ques- 
tions replied that her name had indeed been men- 
tioned, and that Manginot, who was at the " Grand- 
Ture," was looking for her. The young woman 
began to cry. She implored Mme. Chauvel to keep 
her, promised to pay her, and appealed to her pity, so 
that the washerwoman was touched. She had an 
attic in the third story, some bedding was thrown on 
the floor, and from that place Mme. Acquet wrote 
to tell her mother that she had found a safe retreat. 

It was very safe indeed, and one can understand that 
she did not feel the need of telling too precisely the 
conditions of the hospitality she was given. Is it 
necessary to insist on the sort of relations established 
from the moment of her arrival at the Chauvels, be- 
tween the poor woman whose fear of capture killed 
every other feeling and the soldier on whom her fate 
depended ? Chauvel had only to say one word to in- 
sure her arrest ; she yielded to him, he held his tongue 
and the existence which then began for them both 
was so miserable and so tragic that it excites more 
pity than disgust. Mme. Acquet had only one 
thought — to escape the scafFold ; Chauvel had only 
one wish — to keep this unexpected mistress, more 
dear because he sacrificed for her his career, his honour 
and perhaps his life. At first things went calmly 



156 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

enough. No warrant had been issued for the fugitive, 
and in the evening she used to go out disguised with 
Chauvel. Soon she grew bolder and walked in broad 
daylight in the streets of Falaise. On the 15th of 
August Lefebre had Lanoe to breakfast and invited 
her also ; they talked freely, and Mme. Acquet made 
no secret of the fact that she was living with the 
Chauvels and that the son kept her informed of all 
orders received from Caen or Paris. Lefebre led the 
conversation round to the " treasure," for the money 
hidden at the Buquets had excited much cupidity. 
Bureau de Placene, as "banker" to the Chouans, had 
advanced the claims of the royal exchequer ; Allain 
and Lerouge the baker — who showed entire disinter- 
estedness — had gone to Donnay, and with great 
trouble got 1,200 francs from the Buquets ; five times 
Lerouge had gone in a little cart, by appointment, to 
the forest of Harcourt, where he waited under a large 
tree near the crossroad till Buquet brought him some 
money. In this way Placene received 12,000 francs 
in crowns, " so coated with mud that his wife was 
obliged to wash them." But Joseph's relations, who 
had been arrested when he fled, swore that he alone 
knew where the rest of the money was buried, and no 
one could get any more of it. 

While at breakfast with the lawyer and Lanoe 
Mme. Acquet begged the latter to undertake a search. 
She believed the money was buried in the field of 
buckwheat between the Buquets' house and the walls 
of the chateau, and wanted Lanoe to dig there, but 
he refused. She seemed to have lost her head com- 



THE YELLOW HORSE 157 

pletely. She planned to throw herself at the Em- 
peror's feet imploring his pardon ; she talked of re- 
covering the stolen money, returning it to the gov- 
ernment, adding to it her " dot," and leaving fVance 
forever. When she returned in the evening greatly 
excited, she told the washervs^oman of her plans; she 
dwelt on the idea for three days, and thought she had 
only to restore the stolen money to guarantee herself 
against punishment. 

Chauvel was on duty. When he returned on the 
19th he brought some news. Caffarelli was to arrive 
in Falaise the next day, to interrogate Mme. Acquet. 
The night passed in tears and agony. The poor 
woman attempted suicide, and Chauvel seized the 
poison she was about to swallow. An obscure point 
is reached here. Even if CafFarelli's ease and indif- 
ference are admitted, it is hard to believe that he was 
an active accomplice in the plot ; but on the other 
hand, it is surprising that Mme. Acquet did not fly 
as soon as she heard of his intended visit, and that 
she consented to appear before him as if she were 
sure of finding help and protection. The interview 
took place in the house of the mayor, M. de Saint- 
Leonard, a relative of Mme. de Combray's, and re- 
sembled a family council rather than an examination. 
CafFarelli was more paternal than his role of judge 
warranted, and it was long believed in the family that 
Mme. de Combray's remote relationship with the 
Empress Josephine's family, which they had been 
careful not to boast of before, was drawn upon to 
soften the susceptible prefect. Whatever the reason, 



158 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Mme. Acquet left the mayor's completely reassured, 
told Mme. Chauvel that she was going away, and 
took many messages from the good woman to Mme. 
de Combray, with whom she said she was going to 
spend several days at Tournebut. On the 22d she 
made a bundle of her belongings, and taking the arm 
of the gendarme, left the washerwoman's house dis- 
guised as a peasant. 

Life at Tournebut resumed its usual course after 
Lefebre's departure. Mme. de Combray, satisfied 
that her daughter was safe, and that the prefect of 
Calvados even if he suspected her, would never ven- 
ture to cause her arrest, went fearlessly among her 
neighbours. She was not aware that the enquiry had 
passed from CafFarelli's hands into those of the pre- 
fect of Rouen, and was now managed by a man 
whose malignity and stubbornness would not be easily 
discouraged. 

Licquet had taken a fortnight to study the affair. 
His only clues were Flierle's ambiguous replies and 
the Buquets' cautious confessions, but during the 
years that he had eagerly devoted to detective work 
as an amateur, he had laid up a good store of sus- 
picions. The failure of the gendarmes at Tournebut 
had convinced him that this old manor-house, so 
peaceful of aspect, hid terrible secrets, and that its 
occupants had arranged within it inaccessible retreats. 
Then he changed his tactics. Mme. de Combray 
and Bonnoeil had gone in perfect confidence to spend 
the afternoon at Gaillon ; when they returned to 
Tournebut in the evening they were suddenly stopped 



THE YELLOW HORSE 159 

by a detachment of gendarmes posted across the road. 
They were obliged to give their names ; the officer 
showed a warrant, and they all returned to the chateau, 
which was occupied by soldiers. The Marquise pro- 
tested indignantly against the invasion of her house, 
but was forced to be present at a search that was 
begun immediately and lasted all the evening. To- 
wards midnight she and her son were put into a car- 
riage with two gendarmes and taken under escort to 
Rouen, where, at dawn, they were thrown into the 
Conciergerie of the Palais de Justice. 

Licquet was only half satisfied with the result of 
the expedition ; he had hoped to take d'Ache, whom 
he believed to be hidden at Tournebut j the police 
had arrested Mme. Levasseur and Jean-Baptiste 
Caqueray, lately married to Louise d'Ache ; but of 
the conspirator himself there was no trace. For 
three years this extraordinary man had eluded the 
police. Was it to be believed that he had lived all 
this time, buried in some oubliette at Tournebut, and 
could one expect that Mme. de Combray would re- 
veal the secret of his retreat ? 

As soon as she arrived at the Conciergerie, Licquet, 
without showing himself, had gone to " study " his 
prisoner. Like an old, caged lioness, this woman of 
sixty-seven behaved with surprising energy ; she 
showed no evidence of depression or shame ; she did 
as she liked in the prison, complained of the food, 
grumbled all day, and raged at the gaolers. There was 
no reason to hope that she would belie her character, 
nor to count on an emotion she did not feel to obtain 



i6o THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

any information from her. The prefect had her 
brought in a carriage to his house on August 23d, 
and interrogated her for two days. With the expe- 
rience and astuteness of an old offender, the Marquise 
assumed complete frankness ; but she only confessed 
to things she could not deny with success. Licquet 
asked several questions ; she did not reply until she 
had caused them to be repeated several times, under 
pretence that she did not understand them. She 
struggled desperately, arguing, quibbling, fighting foot 
by foot. If she admitted knowing d'Ache and hav- 
ing frequently offered him hospitality, she positively 
denied all knowledge of his actual residence. In 
short, when Savoye-Rollin and Licquet sent her back 
to the Conciergerie, they felt that they had had the 
worst of it and gained nothing. Bonnoeil, when his 
turn came told them nothing but what they already 
knew, and Placide d'Ache flew into a rage and denied 
everything. 

The prefect and his acolyte were feeling somewhat 
abashed at their failure, when the concierge who had 
taken Mme. de Combray back to the Palais asked to 
speak to them. He told them that in the carriage the 
Marquise had offered him a large sum if he would 
take some letters to one of the prisoners. Accus- 
tomed to these requests he had said neither yes nor no, 
but had told " the Combray woman " that he would 
see her at night, when going the rounds, and he had 
come to get the prefect's orders concerning this cor- 
respondence. Licquet urged that the concierge be 
authorised to receive the letters. He hoped by inter- 



THE YELLOW HORSE i6i 

cepting them to learn much from the confidences and 
advice the Marquise would give her fellow-prisoners. 
The idea was at first very repugnant to Savoye- 
Rollin, but the Marquise's proposal seemed to estab- 
lish her guilt so thoroughly, that he did not feel 
obliged to be delicate and consented, not without 
throwing on his secretary -general (one of Licquet's 
titles) the responsibility for the proceeding. Having 
obtained this concession Licquet took hold of the 
enquiry, and found it a good field for the employment 
of his particular talents. No duel was ever more 
pitiless; never did a detective show more ingenuity 
and duplicity. From " love of the art," from sheer 
delight in it, Licquet worked himself up against his 
prisoners with a passion that would be inexplicable, 
did not his letters reveal the intense joy the struggle 
gave him. He felt no hatred towards his victims, but 
only a ferocious satisfaction in seeing them fall into 
the traps he prepared and in unveiling the mysteries 
of a plot whose political significance seemed entirely 
indifferent to him. 

With the keenest anticipation he awaited the time 
when Mme. de Combray's letters to Bonnoeil and 
" Tourlour " should be handed to him. He had to 
be patient till next day, and this first letter told noth- 
ing ; the Marquise gave her accomplices a sketch of 
her examination, and did it so artfully that Licquet 
suspected her of having known that the letter was to 
pass through his hands. The same day the con- 
cierge gave him another letter as insignificant as the 
first, which, however, ended with this sentence, whose 



i62 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

perusal puzzled Licquet : " Do you not know that 
Tourlour's brother has burnt the muslin fichu ? " 

"Tourlour's brother" — that was d'Ache. Had 
he recently returned to Tournebut ? Was he still 
there ? Another letter, given to the gaoler by Bon- 
noeil, answered these questions affirmatively. It was 
addressed to a man of business named Legrand in the 
Rue Cauchoise, and ran thus : " I implore you to 
start at once for Tournebut without telling any one of 
the object of your journey ; go to Grosmenil (the 
little chateau), see the woman Bachelet, and burn 
everything she may have that seems suspicious ; you 
will do us a great service. Return this letter to me. 
Tell Soyer that if any one asks if M. d'Ache has re- 
turned, it is two years since he was seen at Tourne- 
but." 

That same evening the order for Soyer's arrest was 
sent to Gaillon, and twelve hours later he also was in 
the Conciergerie at Rouen. This did not prevent 
Bonnoeil's writing to him the next day, Licquet, as 
may be imagined, not having informed the prisoners 
of his arrest. 

" I beg you, my dear Soyer, to look in the two or 
three desks in my mother's room, and see if you can- 
not find anything that could compromise her, above 
all any of M. Delorieres' (d' Ache's) writing. De- 
stroy it all. If you are asked how long it is since 
M. Delorieres was at Tournebut, say he has not been 
there for nearly two years. Tell this to Collin, to 
Catin, and to the yard girl. ..." 

Licquet carefully copied these letters and then sent 



THE YELLOW HORSE 163 

them to their destination, hoping that the answers 
would give him some light. In his frequent visits to 
the prisoners he dared not venture on the slightest 
allusion to the confidences they exchanged, for fear 
that they might suspect the fidelity of their messenger, 
and refuse his help. Thus, many points remained 
obscure to the detective. The next letter from Bon- 
noeil to Soyer contained this sentence : " Put the 
small curtains on the window of the place where I 
told you to bury the nail. . , ." We can imag- 
ine Licquet with his head in his hands trying to solve 
this enigma. The muslin fichu, the little curtains, 
the nail— was this a cipher decided on in advance 
between the prisoners ? And all these precautions 
seemed to be taken for the mysterious d'Ache whose 
safety seemed to be their sole desire. A word from 
Mme. de Combray to Bonnoeil leaves no doubt as to 
the conspirator's recent sojourn at Tournebut : " I 
wish Mme. K. . . . to go to my house and see 
with So ... if Delor . . . has not left 
some paper in the oil-cloth of the little room near 
the room where the cooks slept. Let him look 
everywhere and burn everything." This time the in- 
formation seemed so sure that Licquet started for 
Tournebut, which had been occupied by gendarmes 
for a fortnight ; he took Soyer to guide him, and the 
commissary of police, Legendre, tb make a report 
of the search. 

They arrived at Tournebut on the morning of Sep- 
tember 5th. Licquet, who was much exhilarated by 
this hunt for conspirators, must have felt a singular 



i64 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

emotion on approaching the mysterious mansion, ob- 
ject of all his thoughts. He took it all in at a 
glance ; he was struck by the isolation of the chateau, 
away from the road below the woods ; he found that 
it could be entered at twenty different places, without 
one's being seen. He sent away the servants, posted 
a gendarme at each door, and conducted by Soyer, 
entered the apartments. 

First he went to the brick wing built by de Marillac, 
where was a vast chamber occupied by Bonnoeil and 
leading to the great hall, astound ingly high and solemn 
in spite of its dilapidation, with a brick floor, a ceil- 
ing with great beams, and immense windows looking 
over the terrace towards the Seine. By a double door 
with monumental ironwork, set in a wall as thick as 
a bastille, Mme. de Combray's apartments were 
reached, the first room wainscoted, then a boudoir, 
next a small room hidden by a staircase, and com- 
municating with a lot of other small, low rooms. A 
long passage, lighted by three windows opening on 
the terrace, led, leaving the Marquise's bedchamber 
on the right, to the most ancient part of the chateau 
the front of which had been recently restored. Hav- 
ing crossed the landing of the steps leading to the 
garden, one reached the salon ; then the dining-room, 
where there was a stone staircase leading to the first 
floor. On this were a long passage and three cham- 
bers looking out on the valley of the Seine, and a lot 
of small rooms that were not used. All the rest was 
lofts, where the framework of the roofs crossed. 
When a door was opened, frightened bats flapped 



THE YELLOW HORSE 165 

their wings with a great noise in the darkness of this 
forest of enormous, worm-eaten beams. In fact, 
everything looked very simple ; there was no sign 
whatever of a hiding-place. The furniture was 
opened, the walls sounded, and the panels examined 
without finding any hollow place. It was now Soyer's 
turn to appear. Whether he feared for himself, or 
whether Licquet had made him understand that denial 
was useless, Mme. de Combray's confidential man 
consented to guide the detectives. He took a bunch 
of keys and followed by Licquet and Legendre, went 
up to a little room under the roof of a narrow build- 
ing next to Marillac's wing. This room had only 
one window, on the north, with a bit of green stuff 
for a curtain ; its only furniture was a miserable 
wooden bed drawn into the middle of the room. 
Licquet and the commissary examined the partitions 
and had them sounded. Soyer allowed them to rum- 
mage in all the corners, then, when they had given up 
all idea of finding anything themselves, he went up to 
the bed, put his hand under the mattress and removed 
a nail. They immediately heard the fall of a weight 
behind the wall, which opened, disclosing a chamber 
large enough to hold fifteen persons. In it were a 
wooden bench, a large chafing-dish, silver candle- 
sticks, a trunk full of papers and letters, two packets 
of hair of different colours, and ^ some treatises on 
games. They seized among other things, the funeral 
oration of the Due d'Enghien, copied by Placide, and 
the passport d'Ache had obtained at Rouen in 1803, 
which was signed by Licquet. When they had put 



i66 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

everything in a bag and closed the partition, when 
they had sufficiently admired the mechanism which 
left no crack or opening visible, Soyer, still followed 
by two policemen, went over the whole chateau, 
climbed to the loft, and stopped at last in a little room 
at the end of the building. It was full of soiled 
linen hung on ropes ; a thick beam was fixed almost 
level with the ground, the whole length of the wall 
embellished with shelves supported by brackets. 
Soyer thrust his hand into a small, worm-eaten hole 
in the beam, and drawing out a piece of iron, fitted it 
on a nail that seemed to be driven into one of the 
brackets. Instantly the shelves folded up, a door 
opened in the wall, and they entered a room large 
enough to hold fifty people with ease. A window — 
impossible to discover from the outside — opened on 
the roof of the chapel, and gave light and air to this 
apartment; it contained only a large wardrobe, in 
which were an earthen dish and an altar stone. 

And so this old manor-house, with its venerable 
and homelike air, was arranged as a resort for brig- 
ands, and an arsenal and retreat for a little army of 
conspirators. For Soyer also revealed the secrets of 
the oubliettes of the little chateau, whose unfurnished 
rooms could shelter a considerable garrison ; they only 
found there three trunks full of silver, marked with so 
many different arms that Licquet believed it must 
have come from the many thefts perpetrated during 
the last fifteen years in the neighbourhood. On ex- 
amination it proved to be nothing of the sort, but 
that all these different pieces of silver bore the arms 



THE YELLOW HORSE 167 

of branches of the families of Brunelle and Com- 
bray j but even though he was obliged to withdraw 
his first supposition, Licquet was firm in attributing 
to the owners of Tournebut all the misdeeds that had 
been committed in the region since the Directory. 
These perfect hiding-places, this chateau on the banks 
of the river, in the woods between two roads, like the 
rocky nests in which the robber-chiefs of the middle 
ages fortified themselves, explained so well the attacks 
on the coaches, the bands of brigands who disap- 
peared suddenly, and remained undiscoverable, that the 
detective gave free rein to his imagination. He per- 
suaded himself that d'Ache was there, buried in some 
hollow wall of which even Soyer had not the secret, 
and as the only hope, in this event, was to starve him 
out, Licquet sent all of Mme. de Combray's servants 
away, and left a handful of soldiers in the chateau, 
the keys of which, as well as the administration of 
the property, he left in the hands of the mayor of 
Aubevoye. 

His first thought on returning to Rouen was for 
his prisoners. They had continued to correspond 
during his absence, and copies of all their letters were 
faithfully delivered to him ; but they seemed to have 
told each other all they had that v/as interesting to 
tell, and the correspondence threatened to become 
monotonous. The imagination of the detective 
found a way of reawakening the interest. One 
evening, when every one was asleep in the prison, 
Licquet gave the gaoler orders to open several doors 
hastily, to push bolts, and walk about noisily in the 



i68 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

corridors, and when, next day, Mme. de Combray 
enquired the cause of all this hubbub, she was easily 
induced to believe that Lefebre had been arrested at 
Falaise and imprisoned during the night. An hour 
later the concierge, with a great show of secrecy, 
gave the Marquise a note written by Licquet, in 
which " Lefebre " informed her of his arrest, and 
said that he had disguised his writing as an act of 
prudence. The stratagem was entirely successful. 
Mme. de Combray answered, and her letter was im- 
mediately given to Licquet, who, awaiting some 
definite information, was astonished to find himself 
confronted with a fresh mystery. "Let me know," 
said the Marquise, " how the horse went back ; that 
no one saw it anywhere." 

What horse ? What answer should he give ? If 
Lefebre had been really in prison, it would have been 
possible to give a sensible reply, but without his help 
how could Licquet avoid awakening her suspicions as 
to the personality of her correspondent ? In the role 
of the lawyer he wrote a few lines, avoiding any 
mention of the horse, and asking how the examin- 
ations went off. To this the Marquise replied : 
" The prefect and a bad fellow examined us. But 
you do not tell me if the horse has been sent back, 
and by whom. If they asked me, what should I 
say ? " 

The "bad fellow" was Licquet himself, and he 
knew it; but this time he must answer. Hoping 
that chance would favour him, he adopted an expedient 
to gain time. He let Mme. de Combray hear that 



THE YELLOW HORSE 169 

Lefebre had fainted during an examination, and was 
not in a condition to write. But she did not slacken 
her correspondence, and wrote several letters daily to 
the lawyer, which greatly increased Licquet's per- 
plexity : 

" Tell me what has become of my yellow horse. 
The police are still at Tournebut; now if they hear 
about the horse — you can guess the rest. Be smart 
enough to say that you sold it at the fair at Rouen. 
Little Licquet is sharp and clever, but he often lies. 
My only worry is the horse ; they will soon have the 
clue. My hand trembles; can you read this? If I 
hear anything about the horse I will let you know at 
once, but just now Tknow nothing. Don't worry 
about the saddle and bridle. They were sent to 
Deslorieres, who told me he had received them." 

This yellow horse assumed gigantic proportions in 
Licquet's imagination ; it haunted him day and night, 
and galloped through all his nightmares. A fresh 
search at Tournebut proved that the stables contained 
only a small donkey and four horses, instead of the 
usual five, and the peasants said that the missing 
beast was " reddish, inclining to yellow." As the de- 
tective sent Real all of Mme. de Combray's letters in 
his daily budget, they were just as much agitated in 
Paris over this mysterious animal, whose discovery 
was, as the Marquise said, the clue to the whole 
afFair. Whom had this horse drawn or carried ? 
One of the Bourbon princes, perhaps ? D'Ache ? 
Mme. Acquet, whom they were vainly seeking 
throughout Normandy ? Licquet was obliged to con- 



170 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

fess to his chiefs that he did not know to what occur- 
rence the story of the horse referred. He felt that 
the weight attached by Mme. de Combray to its re- 
turn, increased the importance of knowing what it 
had been used for. " This is the main point," he 
said; "the horse, the saddle and bridle must be 
found." 

In the absence of Lefebre, who could have solved 
the enigma, and whom CafFarelH had not decided to 
arrest, there remained one way of discovering Mme. 
de Combray's secret — an odious way, it is true, but 
one that Licquet, in his bewilderment, did not hesi- 
tate to employ. This was to put a spy with her, who 
would make her speak. There was in the Concier- 
gerie at Rouen a woman named Delaitre, who had 
been there for six years. This woman was employed 
in the infirmary ; she had good enough manners, ex- 
pressed herself well, and was about the same age as 
Mme. Acquet. It was easy to believe that, in return 
for some remission of her sentence, she would act as 
Licquet's spy. They spoke of her to the Marquise, 
taking care to represent her as a royalist, persecuted 
for her opinions. The Marquise expressed a wish to 
see her ; Delaitre played her part to perfection, saying 
that she had been educated with A/Ime. Acquet at the 
convent of the Nouvelles Catholique, and that she 
felt honoured in sharing the prison of the mother of 
her old school friend. In short, that evening she was 
in a position to betray the Marquise's confidence to 
Licquet. She had learned that Mme. Acquet had as- 
sisted at many of the attacks on coaches, dressed as a 



THE YELLOW HORSE 171 

man. Mme. de Combray dreaded nothing more than 
to have her daughter fall into the hands of the police. 
" If she is taken," she said, " she will accuse me." 
The Marquise was resigned to her fate ; she knew 
she was destined for the scaffold ; " after all, the 
King and the Queen had perished on the guillotine, and 
she would die there also." However, she was anx- 
ious to know if she could be saved by paying a large 
sum; but not a word was said about the yellow 
horse. 

The next day she again wrote of the fear she felt 
for her daughter; she would have liked to warn her 
to disguise herself and go as a servant ten or twelve 
leagues from Falaise. " If she is arrested she will 
speak, and then I am lost," she continued ; so that 
Licquet came to the conclusion that the reason the 
Marquise did not want the yellow horse to be found 
was that it would lead to the discovery of her daugh- 
ter. Mme. Acquet had so successfully disappeared 
during the last two weeks that Real was convinced 
she had escaped to England. Nothing could be done 
without d'Ache or Mme. Acquet. The failure of the 
pursuit, showing the organised strength of the royalist 
party and the powerlessness of the government, would 
justify Caffarelli's indolent neutrality. On the other 
hand, Licquet knew that failure spelled ruin for him. 
He had made the affair his business ; his prefect, 
Savoye-Rollin, was very half-hearted about it, and 
quite ready to stop all proceedings at the slightest 
hitch. Real was even preparing to sacrifice his 
subordinate if need be, and to the amiable letters at 



172 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

first received from the ministry of police, succeeded 
curt orders that implied disfavour. " It is indispen- 
sable to find Mme. Acquet's retreat." " You must 
arrest d'Ache without delay, and above all find the 
yellov7 horse." 

As if the Marquise were enjoying the confusion 
into which the mention of this phantom beast threw 
her persecutor, she continued to scribble on scraps of 
paper which the concierge was told to take to the 
lawyer, who never received them. 

" There is one great difficulty ; the yellow horse is 
wanted. I shall send a safe and intelligent man to 
the place where it is, to tell the people to have it 
killed twelve leagues away and skinned at once. 
Send me in writing the road he must take, and the 
people to whom he must apply, so as to be able to do 
it without asking anything. He is strong and able 
to do fifteen leagues a day. Send me an answer." 

Mme. de Combray had applied to the woman 
Delaitre for this " safe and intelligent man," and the 
latter had, at Licquet's instance, offered the services 
of her husband, an honest royalist, who in reality did 
not exist, but was to be personated by a man whom 
Licquet had ready to send in search of the horse as 
soon as its whereabouts should be determined. 
Lefebre refused to answer this question for the same 
reason that he had refused to answer others, and the 
detective was obliged to confess his perplexity to 
Real. " There is no longer any trouble in inter- 
cepting the prisoner's letters ; the difficulty of sending 
replies increases each day. You must give me abso- 



THE YELLOW HORSE 173 

lution, Monsieur, for all the sins that this affair has 
caused me to commit ; for the rest, all is fair in love 
and war, and surely we are at war with these people." 
To which Real replied : " I cannot believe that the 
horse only served for Mme. Acquet's flight; they 
would not advise the strange precaution of taking it 
twelve leagues away, killing, and skinning it on the 
spot. These anxieties show the existence of some 
grave offence, for which the horse was employed, and 
which its discovery will disclose. You must find out 
the history of this animal; how long Mme. de 
Combray has had it, and who owned it before." In 
vain Licquet protested that he had exhausted his 
supply of inventions and ruses ; the invariable reply 
was, " Find the yellow horse ! " 

He cursed his own zeal ; but an unexpected event 
renewed his confidence and energy. Lefebre, who 
was arrested early in September, had just been thrown 
into the Conciergerie at Rouen. This new card, if 
well played, would set everything right. It was easy 
to induce Mme. de Combray to write another letter 
insisting once more on knowing " the exact address 
of the horse," and the lawyer at last answered unsus- 
pectingly, " With Lanoe at Glatigny, near Brette- 
ville-sur-Dives." 

With Lanoe ! Why had Licquet never guessed 
it ! This name, indeed, so often mentioned in the 
declarations of the prisoners, had made no impression 
on him. Mme. Acquet was hidden there without 
doubt, and he triumphantly sent off an express to 
Real announcing the good news, and sent two sharp 



174 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

men to Glatigny at the same time. They left Rouen 
on September 15th, and time lagged for Licquet while 
awaiting their return. Three days, five days, ten 
days passed without any news of them. In his im- 
patience he spent his time worrying Lefebre. A con- 
tinuous correspondence was established between him 
and Mme. de Combray ; but in his letters, as in his 
examination, he showed great mistrust, and Licquet 
even began to fear that the prudent lawyer would not 
have told where the yellow horse was, if he had not 
been sure that the hunt for it would be fruitless. 
And so the detective, who had played his last card, 
was in an agony during the two weeks' absence of his 
men. At last they returned, discomfited and weary, 
leading the foundered yellow horse, and accompanied 
by a sort of colossus, " somewhat resembling a 
grenadier," who was no other than Lanoe's wife. 

The story told by Licquet's emissaries was as short 
as it was delusive. On arriving at Bretteville-sur- 
Dives they had gone to the farm of Glatigny, but had 
not found Lanoe, whom CafFarelli had arrested a 
fortnight before. His wife had received them, and 
after their first enquiry had led them to the famous 
horse's stable, enchanted at being relieved of the 
famished beast who consumed all her fodder. The 
men had gone as far as Caen, and obtained the pre- 
fect's authorisation to speak to Lanoe. The latter 
remembered that Lefebre had left the horse with him 
at the end of July, on returning from Tournebut, but 
he denied all knowledge of Mme. Acquet's retreat. 
If he was to be believed, she was " a prisoner of her 



THE YELLOW HORSE 175 

family," and would never be found, as the whole 
country round Falaise was " sold " to the mayor, M. 
de Saint-Leonard, who had declared himself his 
cousin's protector. 

Lanoe's wife was sent back to Glatigny, but the 
horse was kept at Rouen — apparently in the hope that 
this dumb witness would bring some revelation. 
Licquet even cut off some of its hairs and sent them, 
carefully wrapped up, to Mme. de Combray, implying 
that they came from the faithful Delaitre, to whom 
the Marquise had confided the task of disposing of 
the compromising animal. The same evening the 
Marquise, completely reassured, wrote the following 
note to the lawyer : 

"• You see that my commissioner was speedy. I 
have had certain proof. He went to Lanoe's wife, 
found the horse, got on it, went five or six leagues, 
killed it, and brought away the skin. He brought me 
some of its coat, and I send you half, so that you may 
see the truth for yourself, and so have no fear. I am 
going to write to Soyer to say that he sold the horse 
at Guibray for 350 livres.'* 

In her joy at being delivered from her nightmare, 
she wrote the same day to Colas, her groom, who was 
also in the Conciergerie : " Do not worry : do you 
need money ? I will send you twelve francs. The 
cursed horse ! They have sent me some of its skin, 
which I send for recognition. Burn this." And to 
her chambermaid, Catherine Querey : " The horse is 
killed. My agent skinned and burnt it. If you are 
asked about the missing horse, say that it was sold. 



176 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

My miserable daughter gives me a great deal of 
pain." 

Thus ends the story of the yellow horse. It 
finished its mysterious odyssey in the stables of 
Savoye-Rollin, where Licquet often visited it, as if 
he could thus learn its secret. For a doubt remained, 
and Real's suggestion haunted him : " If the horse 
had only served for Mme. Acquet's flight, they would 
not advise the strange precaution of taking it twelve 
leagues away, killing, and skinning it on the spot." 
Even now a great deal of mystery hangs about it. 
The horse had not been used by Mme. Acquet, be- 
cause we know that since the robbery of June 7th, 
she had not left the neighbourhood of Falaise. 
Lefebre had ridden it from Tournebut ; but was that 
a fact to be so carefully concealed? Why did the 
Marquise in her confidential letters insist on this 
point ? " Say that the lawyer returned to his house 
on foot," is a sentence that we find in each of her 
letters. Since no mystery was made of the journey, 
why was its means of accomplishment important ? 

There was something unexplained, and Licquet 
was not satisfied. His tricks had brought no result. 
D'Ache was not found ; Mme. Acquet had disap- 
peared ; her description had in vain been sent to all 
the brigades. Manginot, in despair of finding her, 
had renounced the search, and Savoye-Rollin himself 
was " determined to suspend all action." Such was 
the situation during the last days of September. It 
seemed most probable that the affair of Quesnay and 
the great plot of which it was an off-shoot, were go- 



THE YELLOW HORSE 177 

Ing to join many others of the same kind, whose 
originators Fouche's police had despaired of finding, 
when an unexpected event reawakened Licquet's 
fervour and suggested to him a new machination. 



CHAPTER VII 

MADAME ACQUET 

Seclusion, isolation and trouble had in no way 
softened the Marquise de Combray's harsh nature. 
From the very first day, this woman, accustomed to 
living in a chateau, had accommodated herself to the 
life of a prisoner without abating anything of her 
haughty and despotic character. Her very illusions 
remained intact. She imagined that from her cell she 
still directed her confederates and agents, whom she 
considered one and all as servants, never suspecting 
that the permission to write letters, of which she 
made such bad use, was only a trap set for her in- 
genuous vanity. In less than a month she had writ- 
ten more than a hundred letters to her fellow-prison- 
ers, which all passed through Licquet's hands. To 
one she dictated the answers he was to give, to an- 
other she counselled silence, — setting herself up to be 
an absolute judge of what they ought to say or to 
hold back, being quite unable to imagine that any of 
these unhappy people might prefer life to the pleasure 
of obeying her. She would have treated as a liar 
any one, be he who he might, who affirmed that all 
her accomplices had deserted her, that Soyer had 
hastened to disclose the secret hiding-places at 
Tournebut, that Mile. Querey had told all about what 

178 



MADAME ACQUET 179 

she had seen, that Lanoe pestered Caffarelli with his 
incessant revelations, and that Lefebre, whom noth- 
ing but prudence kept silent, was very near telling all 
he knew to save his own head. 

The Marquise was ignorant of all these defections. 
Licquet had created such an artificial atmosphere 
around her that she lived under the delusion that she 
was as important as before. Convinced that nobody- 
was her equal in finesse and authority, she considered 
the detective sufficiently clever to deal with a person 
of humble position, but believed that as soon as she 
cared to trouble herself to bring it about, he would be- 
come entirely devoted to her. And Licquet, with his 
almost genial skilfulness, so easily fathomed the Mar- 
quise's proud soul — was such a perfect actor in the 
way he stood before her, spoke to her, and looked at 
her with an air of submissive admiration, — that it was 
no wonder she thought he was ready to serve her; 
and as she was not the sort of woman to use any dis- 
cretion with a man of his class, she immediately 
despatched the turnkey to oiFer him the sum of 12,000 
francs, half down, if he would consent to promote 
her interests. Licquet appeared very grateful, very 
much honoured, accepted the money, which he put in 
the coffers of the prefecture, and the very same day 
read a letter in which A4me. de Combray informed 
her accomplices of the great news : " We have the 
little secretary under our thumb." 

Ah ! what great talks Licquet and the prisoner had, 
now they had become friends. From the very first 
conversation he satisfied himself that she did not 



i8o THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

know Mme. Acquet's hiding-place ; but the lawyer 
Lefebre, who had at last ceased to be dumb, had not 
concealed the fact that it might be learned through a 
laundress at'Falaise named Mme. Chauvel, and Lic- 
quet immediately informed Mme. de Combray of this 
fact and represented to her, in a friendly manner, the 
danger in which her daughter's arrest would involve 
her, and insinuated that the only hope of security lay 
in the escape to England of Mme. Acquet, " on 
whose head the government had set a price." 

The idea pleased the Marquise; but who would 
undertake to discover the fugitive and arrange for her 
embarcation ? Whom dared she trust, in her desper- 
ate situation ? Licquet seemed the very one ; he, 
however, excused himself, saying that a faithful man, 
carrying a letter from Mme. de Combray, would do 
as well, and the Marquise never doubted that her 
daughter would blindly follow her advice — supported 
by a sufficient sum of money to live abroad while 
awaiting better days. It remained to find the faithful 
man. The Marquise only knew of one, who, quite 
recently, at her request, had consented to go and look 
for the yellow horse, which he had killed and skinned, 
and who, she said, had acquitted himself so cleverly 
of his mission. She was never tired of praising this 
worthy fellow, who only existed, as every one knew, 
in her own imagination ; she admitted that she did 
not know him personally, but had corresponded with 
him through the medium of the woman Delaitre, who 
had been placed near her ; but she knew that he was 
the woman's husband, captain of a boat at Saint- 



MADAME ACQUET i8i 

Valery-en-Caux, and, in addition, a relation of poor 
Raoul Gaillard, whom the Marquise remembered even 
in her own troubles. 

Licquet listened quite seriously while his victim 
detailed the history of this fictitious person whom he 
himself had invented ; he assured her that the choice 
was a wise one, for he had known Delaitre for a long 
time as a man whose loyalty was beyond all doubt. 
As there could be no question of introducing him 
into the prison, Licquet kindly undertook to acquaint 
him with the service expected of him, and to give 
him the three letters which Mme. de Combray was to 
write immediately. The first, which was very con- 
fidential, was addressed to the good Delaitre himself; 
the second was to be handed, at the moment of going 
on board, to Mauge, a lawyer at Valery, who was to 
provide the necessary money for the fugitive's exist- 
ence in England; the third accredited Delaitre to 
Mme. Acquet. The Marquise ordered her daughter 
to follow the honest Captain, whom she represented 
as a tried friend ; she begged her, in her own interest 
and that of all their friends, to leave the country 
without losing a day ; and she concluded by saying 
that in the event of her obeying immediately, she 
would provide generously for all her wants ; then she 
signed and handed the three letters to Licquet, over- 
whelming him with protestations of gratitude. 

All the detective had to do was to procure a false 
Delaitre, since the real did not exist. They selected 
an intelligent man, of suitable bearing, and making 
out a detailed passport, despatched him to Falaise, 



i82 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

armed with the Marquise's letters, to have an inter- 
view with the laundress. Five days later he returned 
to Rouen. The Chauvels, on seeing Mme. de Com- 
bray's letters, quite unsuspectingly gave the messenger 
a warm welcome. The gendarme, however, did not 
approve of the idea of crossing to England. Mme. 
Acquet, he said, was very well hidden in Caen, and 
nobody suspected where she was. What was the use 
of exposing her to the risk of embarking at a well 
watched port. But as Delaitre insisted, saying that 
he had a commission from Mme. de Combray which 
he must carry out, Chauvel, whose duty kept him 
at Falaise, arranged to meet the Captain at Caen on 
the 2d of October. He wished to present him him- 
self to Mme. Acquet, and to help his mistress in this 
matter on which her future depended. Thus it was 
that on the ist of October, Licquet, now sure of 
success, put the false Captain Delaitre in the coach 
leaving for Caen, having given him as assistants, a 
nephew of the same name and a servant, both care- 
fully chosen from amongst the wiliest of his assist- 
ants. The next day the three spies got out at the 
Hotel du Pare in the Faubourg de Vaucelles at Caen, 
which Chauvel had fixed as the meeting-place, and 
whither he had promised to bring Mme. Acquet. 

Six weeks previously, when quitting Falaise on the 
23d August, after the examination to which CafFa- 
relli had subjected her, Mme. Acquet, still ignorant 
of her mother's arrest, had proposed going to Tourne- 
but, in order to hide there for some time before start- 
ing for Paris, where she hoped to find Le Chevalier. 



MADAME ACQUET 183 

She had with her her third daughter, Celine, a child 
of six years, whom she counted on getting rid of by 
placing her at the school kept at Rouen by the ladies 
Dusaussay, where the two elder girls already were. 
They were accompanied by Chauvel's sister, a woman 
named Normand. 

She went first to Caen where she was to take the 
diligence, and lodged with Bessin at the Coupe d'Or 
in the Rue Saint-Pierre. Chauvel came there the 
following day to say good-bye to his friend and they 
dined together. While they were at table, a man, 
whom the gendarme did not know, entered the room 
and said a few words to Mme. Acquet, who went 
into the adjoining room with him. It was Lemarch- 
and, the innkeeper at Louvigny, Allain's host and 
friend. Chauvel grew anxious at this private con- 
versation, and seeing the time of the diligence was 
approaching, opened the door and warned Mme. 
Acquet that she must get ready to start. To his 
great surprise, she replied that she was no longer go- 
ing, as important interests detained her in Caen. She 
begged him to escort the woman Normand and the 
little girl to the coach, and gave him the address of a 
lawyer in Rouen with whom the child could be left. 
The gendarme obeyed, and when he went back to 
the Coupe d'Or an hour later, his mistress had left. 
He returned sadly to Falaise. 

Lemarchand, who had been informed of Mme. 
Acquet's journey, came to tell her, from Allain, that 
" a lodging had been found for her where she would 
be secure, and that, if she did not wish to go, she had 



i84 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

only to come to the Promenade Saint-Julien at night- 
fall, and some one would meet her and escort her to 
her new hiding-place." It may well be that a threat 
of denouncing her, if she left the country, was added 
to this obliging offer. At any rate she was made to 
defer her journey. Towards ten o'clock at night, 
according to Lemarchand's advice, she reached the 
Promenade Saint-Julien alone, walked up and down 
under the trees for some time, and seeing two men 
seated on a bench, she went and sat down beside them. 
At first they eyed each other without saying a word; 
at last, one of the strangers asked her if she were not 
waiting for some one. Upon her answering in the 
affirmative they conferred for a moment, and then 
gave their names. They were the lawyer Vannier 
and Bureau de Placene, two intimate friends of Le 
Chevalier's. Mme. Acquet, in her turn, mentioned 
her name, and Vannier offering her his arm, escorted 
her to his house in the Rue Saint-Martin. 

They held a council next day at breakfast. Le- 
marchand, Vannier, and Bureau de Placene appeared 
very anxious to keep Mme. Acquet. She was, they 
said, sure of not being punished as long as she did not 
quit the department of Calvados. Neither the pre- 
fect nor the magistrates would trouble to enquire into 
the affair, and all the gentry of Lower Normandy 
had declared for the family of Combray, which was, 
moreover, connected with all the nobility in the dis- 
trict. Such were the ostensible reasons which the 
three confederates put forth, their real reason was 
only a question of money. They imagined that 



MADAME ACQUET 185 

Mme. Acquet had the free disposal of the treasure 
buried at the Buquets, which amounted to more than 
40,000 francs. Finding her ready to rejoin Le 
Chevalier, and persuaded that she would carry the 
remainder of this stolen money to her lover, they 
thought it well to stop her and the money, to which 
they believed they had a right — Lemarchand as 
Allain's friend and creditor, Placene in his capacity 
of cashier to the Chouans. The lawyer Vannier, as 
liquidator of Le Chevalier's debts, had offered to keep 
Mme. Acquet prisoner until they had succeeded in 
extorting the whole sum from her. 

The life led by the unhappy woman at Vannier's, 
where she was a prey to this trio of scoundrels, was a 
purgatory of humiliations and misery. When the 
lawyer understood that not only did his prisoner not 
possess a single sou, but that she could not dispose of 
the Buquets' treasure, he flew into a violent passion 
and plainly threatened to give her up to the police ; 
he even reproached her " for what she eat," swearing 
that somehow or other " he would make her pay 
board, for he certainly was not going to feed her free 
of cost." The unhappy woman, who had spent her 
last louis in paying for the seat in the Rouen diligence, 
which she had not occupied, wrote to Lefebre early 
m September, begging him to send her a little money. 
He had received a large share of the plunder and 
might at least have shown himself generous ; but he 
replied coolly that he could do nothing for her ; and 
that she had better apply to Joseph Buquet. 

This was exactly what they wished her to do. 



i86 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Vannier himself brutally advised her to try going to 
Donnay, even at the risk of being arrested, in order 
to bring back some money from there j and Lemarch- 
and, rather than lose sight of her, resolved to accom- 
pany her. 

Mme. Acquet, worn out and reduced to a state of 
subjection, consented to everything that was demanded 
of her. Dressed as a beggar, she took the road to 
Donnay where formerly she had ruled as sovereign 
mistress j she saw again the long avenues at the end 
of which the facade of the chateau, imposing still 
despite its decay, commanded a view of the three ter- 
races of the park ; she walked along by the walls to 
reach the Buquets' cottage where Joseph, who was 
hiding in the neighbouring woods, occasionally re- 
turned to watch over his treasure. She surprised him 
there on this particular day, and implored him to come 
to her assistance but the peasant was inflexible j she 
obtained, however, the sum of one hundred and fifty 
francs, which he counted out to her in twelve-sou 
pieces and copper money. On the evening of her 
return to Caen Mme. Acquet faithfully made over 
the money to Vannier, reserving only fifteen francs 
for her trouble ; moreover, she was obliged to submit 
to her host's obscene allusions as to the means she 
had employed to extort this ridiculous sum from 
Buquet. She bore everything unmoved ; her Indifter- 
ence resembled stupefaction ; she no longer appeared 
conscious of the horrors of her situation or the dan- 
gers to which she was exposed. Her happiest days 
were spent in walks round the town with Chauvel 



MADAME ACQUET 187 

with whom she arranged meetings and who used to 
come from Falaise to pass a few hours .with her j they 
went to a neighbouring village, dined there, and re- 
turned to the town at dusk. 

Allain, too, showed some interest in her. He was 
hiding in the neighbourhood of Caen, and sometimes 
came in the evening to confer with Vannier in com- 
pany with Bureau de Placene and a lawyer named 
Robert Langelley with whom her host had business 
dealings. They were all equally needed, and spent 
their time in planning means to make Joseph Buquet 
disgorge. Allain proposed only one plan, and it was 
adopted. Mme. Acquet was to go to Donnay again 
and try to soften the peasant ; if he refused to show 
where the money was hidden, Allain was to spring on 
him and strangle him. 

They set out from Caen one morning, about the 
25th of September. Mme. Acquet had arranged to 
meet Joseph at the house of a farmer named Halbout, 
which was situated at some distance from the village 
of Donnay. He came at the appointed hour ; but as 
he was approaching carefully, fearing an ambuscade, 
he caught sight of Allain hiding behind a hedge, and 
taking fright made off as fast as his legs could carry 
him. 

They had to go back to Caen empty-handed and 
face the anger of Vannier, who accused his lodger of 
complicity with the Buquets to make their attempts 
miscarry. A fresh council was held, and this time 
Chauvel was admitted ; he too, had a plan. This 
was that he and Mallet, one of his comrades, should' 



i88 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

go to Donnay In uniform ; Langelley was to play the 
part of commissary of police. " They were to arrest 
Buquet on the part of the government ; if he con- 
sented to say where the money was, he was to be 
given his liberty, and the address of a safe hiding- 
place ; in case of his refusing, the police were to kill 
him, and they would then be free to draw up a report 
of contumacy." 

The Marquise de Combray's daughter was present 
at these conferences, meek and resigned, her heart 
heavy at the thought that this wretched money would 
become the prey of these men who had had none of 
the trouble and who would have all the profit. Every 
day she sank deeper and deeper into this quagmire ; 
the plots that were hatched there, the things she 
heard — for they showed no reserve before her — were 
horrible. As she represented 40,000 francs to these 
ruffians, she had to endure not only their brutal gal- 
lantries, but also their confidences. " Mme. Placene 
one day suggested the enforced disappearance of the 
baker Lerouge," says Hornet, as he was "very re- 
ligious and a very good man," she was afraid that if 
he were arrested, "he would not consent to lie, and 
would ruin them all." Langelley specially feared the 
garrulity of Flierle and Lanoe, in prison at Caen, and 
he was trying to get them poisoned. He had already 
made an arrangement " with the chemist and the 
prison doctor, whom he had under his thumb," and 
he also knew a man who " for a small sum, would 
create a disturbance in the town, allow himself to be 
arrested and condemned to a few months' imprison- 



MADAME ACQUET 189 

ment, and would thus find a way of getting rid of 
these individuals." They also spoke of Acquet, who 
was still in jail at Caen. In everybody's opinion 
Mme. Vannier was his mistress, and went to see him 
every day in his cell. He was supposed to be a gov- 
ernment spy, and Placene pretended that Vannier re- 
ceived money from him to keep him informed of 
Mme. Acquet's doings. Langelley, for his part, said 
that Placene was a rogue and that if " he had already 
got his share of the plunder, he received at least as 
much again from the police." 

The poor woman who formed the pivot of these 
intrigues was not spared by her unworthy accomplices. 
Having in mind Joseph Buquet and Chauvel, they all 
suspected one another of having been her lovers. 
Vannier had thus made her pay for her hospitality ; 
I^angelley and the gendarme Mallet himself, had ex- 
acted the same price — accusations it was as impossi- 
ble as it was useless to refute. She herself well knew 
her own abasement, and at times disgust seized her. 
On the evening of September 27th, she did not re- 
turn to Vannier's ; escaping from this hell, she craved 
shelter from a lacemaker named Adelaide Monderard, 
who lodged in the Rue du Han, and who was Lan- 
gelley's mistress. The girl consented to take her in 
and gave her up one of the two rooms which formed 
her lodgings, and which were reached by a very dark 
staircase. It was a poor room under the roof, lighted 
by two small casements, the furniture being of the 
shabbiest. Chauvel came to see her there the follow- 
ing day, and there it was that she learnt of the ex- 



190 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

pected arrival of Captain Delaitre, sent by Mme. de 
Combray to save her, and secure her the means of 
going to England. Mme. Acquet manifested neither 
regret nor joy. She was astonished that her mother 
should think of her; but it seems that she did not 
attach great importance to this incident, which was to 
decide her fate. A single idea possessed her : how 
to find a retreat which would allow of her escaping 
from Vannier's hateful guardianship ; and Langelley, 
who was very surprised at finding her at the lace- 
maker's, seeing her perplexity offered to escort her to 
a country house, about a league from the town, where 
his father lived. She set out with him that very even- 
ing ; at the same hour the false Captain Delaitre left 
Rouen, and the ruse so cleverly planned by Licquet, 
put an end to Mme. Acquet's lamentable adven- 
tures. 

Arriving at the Hotel du Pare on October 2d, 
" Captain " Delaitre went to the window of his room 
and saw a man hurrying down the street with a very 
small woman on his arm, very poorly dressed. From 
his walk he recognised Chauvel dressed as a bour- 
geois ; the woman was Mme. Acquet. The two 
men bowed, and Chauvel leaving his companion, 
went up to the Captain's room. " There were com- 
pliments, handshakes, the utmost confidence, as is 
usual between a soldier and a sailor." Chauvel ex- 
plained that he had walked from Falaise that after- 
noon, and that in order to get off, he had pretended 
to his chiefs that private business took him to Ba- 
yonne. The false Delaitre immediately handed him 



MADAME ACOUET 191 

Mme. de Combray's two letters which Chauvel read 
absently. 

"Let us go down," he saidj " the lady is near and 
awaits us." 

They met her a few steps farther down the road in 
company with Langelley, whom Chauvel introduced to 
Delaitre. The latter immediately offered his arm to 
Mme. Acquet : Chauvel, Langelley and the " nephew 
Delaitre " followed at some distance. 7^hey passed 
the bridge and walked along by the river under the 
trees of the great promenade, talking all the time. It 
was now quite dark. 

Captain Delaitre " after having given Mme. Acquet 
her mother's compliments, informed her of the latter's 
intentions concerning her going to England or the 
isles." But the young woman flatly rejected the 
proposal ; she was, she said, " quite safe with her 
friend's father, within reach of all her relations, and 
she would never consent to leave Caen, where she 
had numerous and devoted protectors." The Cap- 
tain objected that this determination was all the more 
to be regretted since " the powerful personage who 
was interesting himself in the fate of his own people, 
demanded that she should have quitted France, before 
he began to seek Mme. de Combray's release." To 
which Mme. Acquet replied that she should never 
alter her decision. . 

The discussion lasted about half an hour. The 
Captain having mentioned a letter of Mme. de Com- 
bray's of which he was the bearer, Mme. Acquet 
turned to Langelley and asked him to escort her to 



192 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

an inn, where she might read it. They crossed the 
bridge following Langelley up the Rue de Vaucelles, 
and stopped at an inn situated about a hundred yards 
above the Hotel du Pare. Mme. Acquet and her 
companions entered the narrow passage and went up- 
stairs to a room on the first floor, where they seated 
themselves at a table, and Langelley ordered wine 
and biscuits. The young woman took the Marquise's 
letter from the Captain's hands ; all those around her 
were silent and watched attentively. They noticed 
that " she changed colour at every line and sighed." 

" When do you start ? " she asked Delaitre, wiping 
her eyes. 

"Very early to-morrow," he replied. 

She heaved another great sigh and began to read 
again. She became very nervous, and seemed about 
to faint. When she had finished the letter, she ques- 
tioned Delaitre anew. 

"You know for certain, sir, what this letter con- 
tains ? " 

" Yes, Madame ; your mother read it to me." 

She was silent for " more than two minutes " ; 
then she said as if she were making a great eflfbrt : 

" One must obey one's mother's orders. Well, 
Monsieur, I will go with you. Will you not wait 
till to-morrow evening ? " 

Captain Delaitre at first demurred at the idea of 
deferring his journey ; but at last their departure was 
fixed for the following day, October 3d, at nightfall. 
A heated discussion ensued. Langelley noticed that 
Vannier, Allain, Placene and the others did not ap- 



MADAME ACQUET 193 

prove of Mme. Acquet's decision. They were all 
certain that she ran not the slightest risk by remain- 
ing in Caen, inasmuch as there would never be a 
judge to prosecute nor a tribunal to condemn her. 
Delaitre replied that it was precisely to guard against 
the indulgence of the Calvados authorities, that an 
imperial decree had laid the affair before the special 
court at Rouen ; but the lawyer who could not see 
his last chance of laying hands on the Buquets' 
treasure disappear without feeling some annoyance, 
replied that nothing must be decided without the ad- 
vice of their friends. The young woman ended the 
discussion by declaring that she was going " because 
. it was her mother's wish." 

" Are you sure," asked Chauvel, '* that that really 
is your mother's writing ? " 

She answered yes, and the gendarme said that in 
his opinion she was right to obey. 

They then settled the details of the departure. 
Langelley offered to conduct the travellers to the 
borders of the department of Calvados, which De- 
laitre knew very slightly. Mme. Acquet was to take 
no luggage. Her clothes were to be forwarded to 
her, care of the Captain, at the Rouen office. The 
conversation took a "tone of the sincerest friendship 
and the greatest confidence." When the hour for 
separating came, Mme. Acquet pressed the Captain's 
hand several times, saying, " Till to-morrow, then. 
Monsieur." And as she went down the stairs 
Chauvel remained behind with Delaitre, to make sure 
that the latter had brought money to pay the small 



194 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

debts which the fugitive had incurred with the trades- 
men. 

Towards eleven on the following morning Chauvel 
presented himself at the inn alone. He went up at 
once to Delaitre*s room who asked him to lunch and 
sent his nephew out to get oysters. Chauvel had 
come to beg Delaitre to put off his journey another 
day, as Mme. Acquet could not start before Sunday, 
the 4th. While they were at lunch Chauvel became 
quite confidential. He could not see his friend go 
away without regret; he alone, he said, had served 
her from pure devotion. He told how, in order to 
put off his comrades, who had been charged by Man- 
ginot to draw up a description of the fugitive, he had 
intentionally made it out incorrectly, describing her 
" as being very stout and having fair hair.'' He 
talked of d'Ache whom he considered a brigand and 
" the sole cause of all the misfortunes which had 
happened to Mme. de Combray and her family. 
Finally he inquired if the Captain would consent to 
take Buquet and Allain to England as they were in 
fact two of the principal actors in the affair, and the 
Captain consented very willingly. It was agreed that 
as soon as he had landed Mme. Acquet in England, 
he should return to Saint- Valery which was his port. 
All Allain and Buquet had to do, was to go to Privost, 
the innkeeper, opposite the post at Cany on Wednes- 
day, the 14th, and he would meet them and take 
them on board. 

During luncheon Delaitre, who was obviously a 
messenger of Providence, counted out 400 francs in 



MADAME ACQUET 195 

gold on the table, and gave them to Chauvel to pay 
his mistress's debts. 

Vannier had claimed six louis for the hospitality he 
had shown her, alleging that " this sort of lodger 
ought to pay more than the others on account of the 
risk;" he further demanded that the cost of twenty 
masses, which Mme, Acquet had had said, should be 
refunded to him. Chauvel spent part of the Sunday 
with Delaitre ; the meeting was fixed for seven in the 
evening. The Captain was to wait at the door of his 
inn and follow Mme. Acquet when he saw her pass 
with the gendarme. She only appeared at ten at 
night, and they walked separately as far as Vaucelles. 
Langelley kept them waiting, but he arrived at last 
on a borrowed horse; the Captain had got a post- 
horse ; as for the nephew, Delaitre, and the servant, 
they had gone back the evening before to Rouen. 

The time had come to say good-bye. Mme. 
Acquet embraced Chauvel who parted from her " in 
the tenderest manner, enjoining Delaitre to take the 
greatest care of the precious object confided to him." 
Langelley, armed with a club for a riding whip, placed 
himself at the head of the cavalcade, Delaitre warmly 
wrapping Mme. Acquet in his cloak, took her up 
behind him, and with renewed good wishes, warm 
handshakes, and sad " au revoirs " the horsemen set 
off at a trot on the road to Dives. Chauvel saw 
them disappear in the mist, but he waited at the de- 
serted crossroads as long as he could hear the clatter 
of their horses* hoofs on the road. 

They arrived at Dives about three in the morning. 



196 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

The young woman, who had seemed very lively, pro- 
tested that she was not tired, and refused to get ofF. 
Therefore Langelley alone entered the post-house, 
woke up the guide he had engaged the day before; 
and they continued their journey. The day was 
breaking when they arrived at Annebault ; the three 
travelers halted at an inn where they spent the whole 
day J the lawyer and Mme. Acquet settled their little 
accounts. They slept a little, they talked a great 
deal, and spent a long time over dinner. At six in 
the evening they mounted their horses again and took 
the road to Pont-l'Eveque. Langelley escorted the 
fugitives as far as the forest of Touques : before leav- 
ing Mme. Acquet, he asked her for a lock of her 
hair ; he then embraced her several times. 

It was nearly midnight when the young woman 
found herself alone with Delaitre. The horse ad- 
vanced with difficulty along the forest roads. Cling- 
ing to the Captain with both arms, Mme. Acquet no 
longer talked ; her excitement of yesterday had given 
place to a kind of stupor, so that Delaitre, who in the 
darkness could not see that her great dark eyes were 
open, thought that she had fallen asleep on his shoul- 
der. At three in the morning they at length arrived 
at the suburbs of Pont-Audemer ; the Captain stopped 
at the post-house and asked for a room ; in the register 
which was presented to him he wrote : " Monsieur 
Delaitre and wife." 

They were breakfasting towards noon when a non- 
commissioned marine officer, accompanied by an es- 
cort of two men, entered the room. He went straight 



MADAME ACQUET 197 

up to Delaitre, asked his name, and observing his 
agitation, called upon him to show his papers. These 
he took possession of after a brief examination, and 
then ordered the soldiers to put Delaitre under arrest. 
The officer, an amiable and talkative little man, 
continually excused himself to Mme. Acquet for the 
annoyance he was causing her. Captain Delaitre, he 
said, had left his ship without any authority, and it 
had been pointed out, moreover, that he had willingly 
engaged in smuggling while pretending to be trading 
along the coast. He did not commit the indiscretion 
of inquiring the lady's name, nor what reason she had 
for scouring the country in company of a ship's 
captain ; but he carefully gave her to understand that 
she must be detained until they got to Rouen, whither 
Delaitre would be escorted to receive a reprimand 
from the commandant of the port. Mme. Acquet 
was convinced that it was nothing but a misunder- 
standing which would be cleared up at Rouen, and 
troubled very little about the incident ; and as she was 
worn out with fatigue, she expressed a wish to spend 
that night and the following day at Pont-Audemer. 
The little officer consented with alacrity, and whilst 
appearing only to keep an eye on Delaitre, he never 
for an instant lost sight of the young woman, whose 
attitudes, gestures and appearance he scrutinised with 
malicious eyes. It was Licquet, as we have already 
guessed, who in his haste to know the result of the 
false Delaitre's adventures, had dressed himself up in 
a borrowed uniform and come to receive his new 
victim. He was full of forethought for her j he took 



198 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

her in a carriage from Pont-Audemer to Bourg- 
Achard, where he allowed her to rest. On the 
morning of the seventh they left Bourg-Achard and 
arrived at Rouen before midday. The kindly officer 
was so persuasive that Mme. Acquet offered no re- 
sistance nor recriminations when she was taken to the 
Conciergerie, where she was entered under the name 
of Rosalie Bourdon, doubtless the one under which 
she had travelled. She appeared quite indifferent to 
all that went on around her. On entering this prison, 
where she knew her mother was, she showed abso- 
lutely no emotion. She remained in this state of 
resigned lassitude for two days. Licquet, who came 
to see her several times, endeavoured to keep her 
under the impression that her imprisonment had no 
other cause than Delaitre's infringement of the mari- 
time regulations; he even took the precaution of 
pretending not to know her name. 

Meanwhile, he laid his plans for attack. At first 
his joy, at capturing the much desired prey had been 
so keen that he could not withstand the pleasure of 
writing the news straight to Real whom he asked to 
keep it secret for a fortnight. On reflexion he real- 
ised how difficult it would be to obtain confessions 
from a woman who had been so hideously deceived, 
and he felt that the traps, into which the naive Mme. 
de Combray had fallen would be of no avail in her 
daughter's case. He had better ones : on his person 
he carried the letter which Mme. de Combray had 
written to her dear Delaitre, which he had taken from 
the Captain in Mme. Acquet's very presence. In 



MADAME ACQUET 199 

this letter, the Marquise had spoken of her daughter 
as " the vilest of creatures, lamenting that for her own 
safety she was obliged to come to the assistance of 
such a monster; she especially complained of the 
amount of money it was costing her." 

On the 9th of October, Licquet came into Mme. 
Acquet's cell, began to converse familiarly with her, 
told her that he knew her name and showed her Mme. 
de Combray's letter. On reading it Mme. Acquet 
flew into a violent passion. Licquet comforted her, 
gave her to understand that he was her only friend, 
that her mother hated her and had only helped her in 
the hope of saving her own life ; that the lawyer Le- 
febre had sold himself to the police on giving the 
Chauvels* address at Falaise, in proof of which he 
showed her the note written by the lawyer's own 
hand. He even went so far as to allude to certain in- 
fidelities on the part of Le Chevalier, and to the mis- 
tresses he must have had in Paris, till at last the 
unhappy woman burst into tears of indignation and 
grief. 

" Enough," she said ; " it is my turn now ; you 
must receive my declaration immediately, and take it 
at once to the prefect. I will confess everything. 
My life is a burden to me." 

She immediately told the long story of d'Ache*s 
plans, his journeys to England, the organisation of 
the plot, the attempt to print the Prince's manifesto, 
and also how he had beguiled Le Chevalier and had 
succeeded in drawing him into it, by promises of high 
rank and great honours. She said, too, that d'Ache 



200 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

whom she accused of having caused all the unhappi- 
ness of her life, had recommended robbing the public 
treasury ; that the attacks on the coaches had been 
carried out by his orders, which had been " to stop 
them all." She accused her mother of helping to 
transport the booty to Caen ; herself she accused of 
having sheltered the brigands. The only ones she 
excused were Joseph Buquet, who had only carried 
out her instructions, and Le Chevalier whom she 
represented as beguiled by d'Ache's misleading prom- 
ises. Her " frantic passion " was apparent in every 
word she uttered : she even told Licquet that " if she 
could save Le Chevalier's life at the cost of her own 
she would not hesitate." 

When she had finished her long declaration, she 
fell into a state of deep depression. On entering the 
prison next day, Licquet found her engaged in cutting 
ofF her magnificent hair, which, she said sadly, she 
wished to save from the executioner. She observed 
that since she was miserably destined to die, Chauvel, 
who called himself her friend, had done very wrong 
in preventing her from taking poison : all would have 
been over by now. But she hoped that grief would 
kill her before they had time to condemn her. 

As she said these words she turned her beautiful 
piercing eyes to a dark corner of her cell. Licquet, 
following her gaze, saw a very prominent nail stick- 
ing in the wall at a height of about six feet. With- 
out letting her see his anxiety, he tried to direct the 
prisoner's attention to other objects, and succeeded in 
working her up to a state of " wild gaiety." 



MADAME ACQUET 201 

That very day the nail was taken out, but there 
still remained the bolts of the door and the bed-posts, 
to which, being of such low stature, she could hang her- 
self; a woman from Bicetre was therefore set to 
watch her. 

It would be impossible to follow Licquet through 
all the phases of the inquiry. This diabolical man 
seems to have possessed the gift of ubiquity. He 
was in the prison where he worked upon the prison- 
ers ; at the prefecture directing the examinations ; at 
Caen, making inquiries under the very nose of Caf- 
farelli, who believed that the affair had long since 
been buried ; at Falaise, where he was collecting testi- 
mony ; at Honfleur, at Pont-Audemer, at Paris. He 
drew up innumerable reports, and sent them to the 
prefect or to Real, with whom he corresponded 
directly, and when he was asked what reward he was 
ambitious of obtaining for his devoted service to the 
State, he replied philosophically : " I do not work for 
my own glory, but only for that of the police gen- 
erally, and of our dear Councillor, whom I love with 
all my heart. As for me, poor devil, I am destined to 
remain obscure, which, I must say, pleases me, since I 
recognise the inconvenience of having a reputation." 

One of the most picturesque events of his enquiry 
was another journey taken towards the end of Octo- 
ber by the false Captain Delaitre and his false nephew 
in search of Allain and Buquet, whom they had not 
found on the day mentioned at the inn at Cany. At 
Caen Delaitre saw again the lawyer Langelley, the 



202 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Placenes and Monderard's daughter, and they enter- 
tained him. He gave them very good news of Mme. 
Acquet, who, he said, was comfortably settled at a 
place on the English coast ; but although he had a 
very important letter for Allain, which Mme. de 
Combray wished him to take to England without de- 
lay, the wily Chouan did not show himself. His 
daughter, who had set up as a dressmaker at Caen 
and was in communication with Mme. Placene, un- 
dertook, however, to forward the letter to him. The 
Captain announced his intention of following the girl 
in the hope of discovering her father's retreat, but 
Langelley and the others assured him that it would be 
a waste of time. The young girl alone knew where 
the outlaw was hidden and " each time she went to 
take him news, she disguised herself, entered a house, 
disguised herself afresh before leaving, went into 
another house, changed her costume yet again, and so 
on. It was impossible to be sure when she came out 
of each house that it was the same person who had 
gone in, and to know in which her father was." 
Two days later the girl reappeared. She said that 
her father had gone to his own home near Cherbourg, 
where "he had property." He wanted to sell his 
furniture and lease his land before going to England. 
This was the other side of the terrible " General An- 
tonio." He was a good father and a small landed 
proprietor. Delaitre realised that this was a defeat, 
and that Allain was not easily to be beguiled. He 
did not persist, but packed up his traps and returned 
to Rouen. 



MADAME ACQUET 203 

This check was all the more painful to Licquet, 
since he had hoped that by attracting Allain, d'Ache 
would also be ensnared. Without the latter, who 
was evidently the head of the conspiracy, only the 
inferiors could be arraigned, and the part of the prin- 
cipal criminal would have to be passed over in silence, 
in consequence of which the affair would sink to the 
proportions of common highway robbery. Stimulated 
by these motives, and still more so by his amour- 
propre, Licquet set out for Caen. His joy in action 
was so keen that it pervades all his reports. He de- 
scribes himself as taking the coach with Delaitre, his 
nephew and " two or three active henchmen." He 
is so sure of success that he discounts it in advance : 
" I do not know," he writes to P^eal, " whether I am 
flattering myself too much, but I am tempted to hope 
that the author will be called for at the end of the 
play." 

It is to be regretted that we have no details of this 
expedition. In what costume did Licquet appear at 
Caen ? What personality did he assume ? How did 
he carry out his manoeuvres between Mme. Acquet's 
friends, his confederate Delaitre and the Prefect Caf- 
farelli, without arousing any one's suspicion or wound- 
ing their susceptibilities ? It is impossible to disen- 
tangle this affair; he was an adept at troubling water 
that he might safely fish in it, and seemed jealous to 
such a degree of the means he employed, that he 
would not divulge the secret to any one. With an 
instinctive love of mystification, he kept up during 
his journey an ojfficial correspondence with his pre- 



204 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

feet and a private one with Real. He told one what 
he would not confess to the other; he wrote to 
Savoye-Rollin that he was in a hurry to return to 
Rouen, while by the same post he asked Real to get 
him recalled to Paris during the next twenty-four 
hours. " If you adopt this idea, Monsieur, you must 
be kind enough to select a pretext which will not 
wound or even scratch any one's amour-propre." 
The " any one " mentioned here is Savoye-Rollin. 
What secret had Licquet discovered, that he did not 
dare to confide, except orally, and then only to the 
Imperial Chief of Police ? We believe that we are 
not wrong in premising that scarcely had he arrived 
at Caen when he laid hands on a witness so impor- 
tant, and at the same time so difficult to manipulate, 
that he was himself frightened at this unexpected 
coup de theatre. 

Whilst ferreting about in the prisons to which he 
had obtained access that he might talk to Lanoe and 
the Buquets, he met Acquet de Ferolles, who had 
been forgotten there for three months. Whether 
Mme. de Placene was, as Vannier suspected, em- 
ployed by the police and knew Licquet's real person- 
ality, or whether the latter found another intermedi- 
ary, it is certain that he obtained Acquet de Ferolles' 
confidence from the beginning, and that he got the 
credit of having him set at liberty. It was after this 
interview that Licquet asked Real to recall him to 
Paris for twenty-four hours. His journey took place 
in the early days of November, and on the I2th, on 
an order from Real Acquet was rearrested and taken 



MADAME ACQUET 205 

in a post-chaise from Donnay to Paris, escorted by a 
sergeant of police. On the i6th he was entered in 
the Temple gaol-book, and Real, who hastened to in- 
terrogate him, showed him great consideration, and 
promised that his detention should not be long. A 
note, which is still to be found among the papers 
connected with this affair, seems to indicate that this 
incarceration was not of a nature to cause great alarm 
to the Lord of Donnay : " M. Acquet has been taken 
to Paris that he may not interfere with the proceed- 
ings against his wife. . . , It is known that he 
is unacquainted with his wife's offence, but M. Real 
believes it necessary to keep him at a distance." That 
was not the tone in which the police of that period 
usually spoke of their ordinary prisoners, and it seems 
advisable to call attention to the fact. Let us add 
that the royalists detained in the Temple were not 
taken in by it, M. de Revoire, an old habitue of the 
prison, who spent the whole of the Imperial period in 
captivity told the Combray family after the Restora- 
tion, that all the prisoners considered Acquet " as a 
spy, an informer, the whole time he was in the Tem- 
ple." After a week's imprisonment and three weeks* 
surveillance in Paris, he was set at liberty and re- 
turned to Donnay. 

From the comparison of these facts and dates, is 
one not led to infer that Licquet had persuaded 
Acquet without much difficulty we may be sure, to 
become his wife's accuser ? But the desire not to 
compromise himself, and still more the dread of 
reprisals, shut the mouth of the unworthy husband at 



2o6 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Caen, eager though he was to speak in Paris, provided 
that no one should suspect the part he was playing j 
hence this sham imprisonment in the Temple — evi- 
dently Licquet's idea — which gave him time to make 
revelations to Real. 

Whatever it may have been, this incident inter- 
rupted Licquet's journey to Caen. He continued it 
towards the middle of November, quitting Rouen on 
the 1 8th, still accompanied by Delaitre and others of 
his cleverest men. This time he represented himself 
as an inspector of taxes, which gave him the right of 
entering houses and visiting even the cellars. His 
aim was to unearth Allain, Buquet and especially 
d'Ache, but none of them appeared. We cannot deal 
with this third journey in detail, as Licquet has kept 
the threads of the play secret, but from half-confi- 
dences made to Real, we may infer that he bought 
the concurrence of Langelley and Chauvel on formal 
promises of immunity from punishment; they con- 
sented to serve the detective and betray Allain, and 
they were on the point of delivering him up when 
" fear of the Gendarme Mallet caused everything to 
fail." Licquet fell back with his troop, taking with 
him Chauvel, Mallet and Langelley, who were soon 
to be followed by Lanoe, Vannier, Placene and all the 
Buquets, save Joseph, who had not been seen again. 
But before starting on his return journey to Rouen, 
Licquet wished to pay his respects to Count Caf^ 
farelli^ the Prefect of Calvados, in whose territory he 
had just been hunting. The latter did not conceal 
his displeasure, and thought it strange that his own 



MADAME ACQUET 207 

gendarmes should be ordered to proceed with criminal 
cases and to make arrests of which they neglected 
even to inform him. Licquet states that after " look- 
ing black at him, CafFarelli laughed till he cried " 
over the stories of the false Captain Delaitre and the 
false inspector of taxes. It is probable that the story 
was well told ; but the Prefect of Calvados was none 
the less annoyed at the unceremonious procedure, as 
he testified a little later with some blustering. 
Licquet, moreover, was not deceived : on his return 
from Caen, he wrote : " Behold, I have quarrelled 
with the Prefect of Calvados." 

However, he cared very little about it. It had 
been tacitly decreed that the robbery at Quesnay 
should be judged by a special court at Rouen. 
Licquet became the organiser and stage-manager of 
the proceedings. At the end of 1807 he had under 
lock and key thirty-eight prisoners whom he ques- 
tioned incessantly, and kept in a state of uncertainty 
as to whether he meant to confront them with 
each other. But he declared himself dissatisfied. 
D'Ache's absence spoiled his joy. He quite under- 
stood that without the latter, his triumph would be 
incomplete, his work would remain unfinished, and it 
was doubtless due to this torturing obsession that he 
owed the idea, as cruel as it was ingenious, of a new 
drama of which the old Marquise de Combray was 
again the victim. 

On a certain day of November, 1807, she heard 
from her cell an unusual tumult in the passages of the 
prison. Doors burst open and people called to each 



2o8 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

other. There were cries of joy, whispers, exclama- 
tions of astonishment or vexation, then long silences, 
which left the prisoner perplexed. The next day 
when Licquet came to visit her she noticed that his 
face wore a troubled expression. He was very 
laconic, mentioned grave events which were prepar- 
ing, and disappeared like a busy man. To prisoners 
everything is a reason for hope, and that night Mme. 
de Combray gave free course to her illusions. The 
following day she received through the woman De- 
laitre, a short letter from the honest " Captain " — the 
man who had saved Mme. Acquet, killed the yellow 
horse, and whom she called her guardian angel. The 
guardian angel wrote only a few words : " Bonaparte 
is overthrown ; the King is about to land in France ; 
the prisons are opening everywhere. Write a letter 
at once to M. d'Ache which he can hand to his 
Majesty. I will undertake to forward it to him." 

It is a truly touching fact that the old Marquise, 
whose energy no fatigue, no moral torture could 
abate, fainted from happiness on learning of her 
King's return. 

The event realised all her hopes. For so many 
years she had been expecting it from one moment to 
another, without ever growing discouraged, that a 
denouement for which she had been prepared so long, 
seemed quite natural to her, and she immediately made 
her arrangements for the new life that was about to 
commence. She first of all wrote a line of thanks to 
the " good Delaitre," promising her protection and as- 
suring him that he should be rewarded for his devo- 



MADAME ACQUET 209 

tion. She then wrote to d'Ache a letter overflowing 
with joy. 

" I have reached the pinnacle of my happiness, my 
dear Vicomte," she wrote, " which is that of all 
France. I rejoice in your glory. M. Delaitre has 
rendered me the greatest services, and during the past 
two months has been constantly journeying in my be- 
half. His wife, my companion in misfortune, has 
turned towards me his interest in the unhappy, and 
he has sent me a message informing me of the great 
events which are to put an end to all our troubles, 
advising me to write a letter to the King and send it 
to you to present to him. This is a bright idea, and 
compensates for the fact that my son is not lucky 
enough to be in his proper place, as we desired and 
planned. Your dear brother in chains is only sup- 
ported by the thought of your glory. I do not know 
how to speak to a king so great by reason of his 
courage and virtue. I have allowed my heart to 
speak, and I count upon you to obtain the favour of a 
visit from him at Tournebut. The prisons are open 
everywhere. ... I have borne my imprison- 
ment courageously for three years, but fell ill on hear- 
ing the great news. You will let me know in time 
if I am to have the happiness of entertaining the 
King. It is very bold of me to ask if such a favour 
is possible in a house which I believe to be devastated 
by commissioners who have exhausted on it their rage 
at not finding you there. Render, I beg of you, to 
M. Delaitre all that I owe him. You will know him 
as a relation of our poor Raoul. He is inspired with 
the same sentiments and begs you to let him serve 
you, not wishing to remain idle in such a good cause 
and at such a great moment. This letter bears the 
marks of our imprisonment. Accept, my dear 



210 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Vicomte, my sentiments of attachment and venera- 
tion. 

" I have the honour to be, 

" Your very humble servant, 

" De Combray. 
" I shall go to your mother's to await the King's 
passing, if I obtain my liberty before his arrival, and 
I shall have to go to Tournebut in order to have 
everything repaired and made ready if I am to enjoy 
this favour. You Vi^ill write, and wait impatiently." 

The most heartrending of the letters despatched by 
the duped old royalist in her joy, is the one destined 
for the King himself. Proud of his stratagem, Licquet 
forwarded it to the police authorities, who retained it. 
It is written in a thick, masculine hand on large paper 
—studied, almost solemn at the beginning, then, with 
the outpouring of her thoughts, ending in an almost 
illegible scribble. One feels that the poor woman 
wanted to say everything, to empty her heart, to free 
herself of eighteen years of mortification, mourning 
and suppressed indignation. The following is the 
text of the letter, almost complete : 

" To His Majesty Louis XVUI- 

" Sire -.--From my prison, where at the age of 
sixty-six, I as well as my son, have been thrust for 
the last four months, we have the happmess of offer- 
ing you our respects and congratulations on your 
happy accession to your throne. All our wishes are 

fulfilled, sire. ... ^ ^r-^ At^ 

" The few resources still at our command were ac- 
voted to supporting your faithful servants of every 
class, and in saving them from execution. I have to re- 



MADAME ACQUET 211 

gret the loss of the Chevalier de Margadelle, Raoulle, 
Tamerlan and the young Tellier, all of whom were 
carried away by their zeal for your Majesty's cause 
and fell victims to it at Paris and Versailles. I had 
hired a house, which I gave up to them with all the 
hiding-places necessary for their safety. My son had 
the good fortune to be under the orders of Messieurs 
de Frotte and Ingant de St. Maur. 

" I am sending my letter to M. le Vicomte d'Ache, 
in order that he may present it to your Majesty and 
solicit a favour very dear to my heart — that you will 
condescend to stay at my house on your way to Paris. 
Sire, you will find my house open, and, they say, sur- 
rounded with barricades, consequences of the ill-usage 
it has received during their different investigations, 
another of which has recently occurred in the hope 
of finding M. le Vicomte d'Ache and my daughter, 
as well as repeated sojourns made by order of the 
prefect, and an interrogation by his secretary, after 
having been subjected to an examination lasting eleven 
hours in this so-called Court of Justice, in order that 
I might inform them of my correspondence with 
M. de Ache as well as of a letter I received from him 
on the 17th of last March. The worst threats have 
been used such as being confronted with Le Chevalier, 
and my being sent to Paris to be guillotined, but noth- 
ing terrified me, I did not tell them anything about 
my relations with him or where he was living. I had 
just left him ten days previously. My reply to this 
persecution was that M. de Ache was in London, and 
I concluded by assuring them that I did not fear death, 
that I would fervently perform my last act of con- 
trition, and that my head would fall without my dis- 
closing this interesting mystery. 

" My liberty was promised me six weeks ago, but 
at the price of a large sum of money, which is, I be- 
lieve, to be divided between the prefect and his secrc- 



212 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

tary Niquct (sic). Half the sum is safely under lock 
and key in the latter's bureau. 1 have been a long 
time trying to collect the sum demanded, as I received 
little assistance from those v^ho called themselves my 
friends. My very property w^as refused me with ar- 
rogant threats, for it was believed that I was to be put 
to the sword. The only end I hoped to attain by my 
sacrifices was to save my daughter, upon whose head 
a price of 6,000 francs had been set at Caen. The 
family Delaitre, without any other interest in me than 
that which misfortune inspires have displayed indefati- 
gable zeal in my cause, exposing their lives to great 
danger in order to remove her from Caen, where the 
authorities left no stone unturned. 

" Three of my servants have been cast into prison, 
a fourth, named Francois Hebert, commendable for 
thirty-seven years' faithful service, defended our inter- 
ests, and for his honesty's sake has been in chains 
since the month of July. What must he not have 
suffered during the last eleven years at the hands of 
the authorities, the tax receivers at Harcourt, Falaise 
and Caen, and of many others who wished his ruin 
because at our advice he purposely took the farm on 
our estate, that he might there save your persecuted 
followers. He is well known to M. de Frotte whose 
esteem he enjoyed, and whom he received with 
twenty-four of his faithful friends, knowing they 
would be safe in his house. All this anxiety has 
greatly impaired his health and that of his wife, who 
was pregnant at the time, and consequently their son, 
aged eleven, is in very delicate health. The Dartenet 
(sic) family have caused many of our misfortunes by 
daily denunciations, which they renewed with all their 
might in January, 1806. It was only by a special 
providence that we, as well as M. le Vicomte d'Ache, 
escaped imprisonment. My son hastened to warn 
him not to return to our cottage, which was part of 



MADAME ACQUET 213 

my dowry, and offended the Dartenets, who wanted 
this tavern that they might turn it into a special inn 
for their castle, which is the fruit of their iniquity. 

" Mv son and I both crave your Majesty's protec- 
tion and that of the princes of the blood. 
" I respectfully remain, 
" Your Majesty's very humble and obedient servant, 

" De Combray." 



It was, as we see, a general confession. What must 
have been the Marquise's grief and rage on learning 
that she had been deceived ? At what moment did 
Licquet cease to play a double part with her ? With 
what invectives must she not have overwhelmed him 
when he ceased ? How did Mme. de Combray learn 
that her noblest illusions had been worked upon to 
make her give up her daughter and betray all her 
friends ? These are things Licquet never explained, 
either because he was not proud of the dubious 
methods he employed, or, more probably, because he 
did not care what his victims thought of them. Be- 
sides, his mind was occupied with other things. 
Mme. de Combray had hinted to Delaitre that 
d'Ache usually stayed in the neighbourhood of 
Bayeux, without stating more precisely where, as she 
was certain he w^ould easily be found beside the 
newly landed King. Licquet, therefore, went in 
search of him, and his men scoured the neighbour- 
hood. Placene, for his part, annoyed at finding that 
Allain did not keep his word and made no attempt to 
deliver his imprisoned comrades, gave some hints. In 
order to communicate with Allain and d'Ache, one 



214 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

was, according to him, obliged to apply to an inn- 
keeper at Saint-Exupere. This man was in corre- 
spondence with a fellow named Richard, who acted 
as courier to the two outlaws. " Between Bayeux 
and Saint-Lo is the coal mine of Litre, and the vast 
forest of Serisy is almost contiguous to it. This 
mine employed five or six hundred workmen, and as 
Richard was employed there one was inclined to think 
that the subterranean passages might serve as a refuge 
to Allain and d'Ache, whether they were there in the 
capacity of miners, or were hidden in some hut or 
disused ditch." 

The information was too vague to be utilised, and 
Licquet thought it wiser to direct his batteries on an- 
other point. He had under his thumb one victim 
whom as yet he had not tortured, and from whom he 
hoped much : this was Mme. Acquet. " She is," he 
wrote, " a second edition of her mother for hypoc- 
risy, but surpasses her in maliciousness and ill-nature. 
Her children seem to interest her but little ; 
she never mentions them to any one, and her heart is 
closed to all natural sentiments." 

But I believe that it was to excuse himself in his 
chiefs eyes that Licquet painted such a black picture 
of the prisoner. His own heart was closed to all 
compassion, and we find in this man the inexorable 
impassibility of a LafFemas or a Fouquier Tinville, 
with a refined irony in addition which only added to 
the cruelty. The moral torture to which he sub- 
jected Mme. Acquet is the product of an inquisitor's 
mind. " At present," he remarked, " as the subject 



MADAME ACQUET 215 

is somewhat exhausted, I shall turn my attention to 
setting our prisoners against one another. The little 
encounter may give us some useful facts.'* 

The little encounter broke the prisoner's heart, and 
deprived her of the only consoling thought so many 
misfortunes had left her. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PAYING THE PENALTY 

" Le Chevalier is the adored one.'* 

It was thus that Licquet summarised his first con- 
versation with Mme. Acquet. He had been certain 
for some time that her unbridled passion for her hero 
held such a place in her heart that it had stifled all 
other feeling. For his sake she had harboured 
Allain's men ; for him she had so often gone to brave 
the scornful reception of Joseph Buquet ; and for him 
she had so long endured the odious life in Vannier's 
house. Licquet decided that so violent a passion, 
" well handled," might throw some new light on af- 
fairs. This incomparable comedian should have been 
seen playing his cruel game. In what manner did 
he listen to the love-sick confidences of his prisoner ? 
In what sadly sympathetic tones did he reply to the 
glowing pictures she drew of her lover ? For she 
spoke of little else, and Licquet listened silently until 
the moment when, in a burst of feeling, he took both 
her hands, and as if grieved at seeing her duped, ex- 
claiming with hypocritical regard : " My poor child ! 
Is it not better to tell you everything ? " made her 
believe that Le Chevalier had denounced her. She 
refused at first to believe it. Why should her lover 
have done such an infamous thing ? But Licquet 

216 



PAYING THE PENALTY 217 

gave reasons. Le Chevalier, vi^hile in the Temple 
had learned, from Vannier or others, of her relations 
with Chauvel, and in revenge had set the police on 
the track of his faithless friend. And so the man for 
whom she had sacrificed her life no longer loved her ! 
Licquet, in order to torture her, overwhelmed the 
unhappy woman with the intentionally clumsy conso- 
lation that only accentuates grief. She wept much, 
and had but one thing to say. 

" I should like to save him in spite of his ingrati- 
tude." 

This was not at all what the detective wished. 
He had hoped she would, in her turn, accuse the man 
who had betrayed her ; but he could gain nothing on 
this point. She felt no desire for revenge. The 
letters she wrote to Le Chevalier (Licquet encouraged 
correspondence between prisoners) are full of the sad- 
ness of a broken but still loving heart. 

" It is not when a friend is unfortunate that one 
should reproach him, and I am far from doing so to 
you, in spite of your conduct as regards me. You 
know I did everything for you, — I am not reproaching 
you for it, — and after all, you have denounced me ! 
I forgive you with all my heart, if that can do you 
any good, but I know your reason for being so unjust 
to me; you thought I had abandoned .you, but I swear 
to you I had not." 

There was not much information in that for 
Licquet, and in the hope of learning something, he 
excited Mme. Acquet strongly against d'Ache. Ac- 
cording to him d'Ache was the one who first " sold 



2i8 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

them all *' ; it was he who caused Le Chevalier to be 
arrested, to rid himself of a troublesome rival after 
having compromised him j it was to d'Ache alone 
that the prisoners owed all their misfortunes. And 
Licquet found a painful echo of his insinuations in 
all Mme. Acquet's letters to her lover; but he found 
nothing more. " You know that Delorriere d'Ache is 
a knave, a scoundrel ; that he is the cause of all your 
trouble ; that he alone made you act ; you did not 
think of it yourself, and he advised you badly. He 
alone deserves the hatred of the government. He is 
abhorred and execrated as he deserves to be, and there 
is no one who would not be glad to give him up or 
kill him on the spot. He alone is the cause of your 
trouble. Recollect this ; do not forget it." 

It is not necessary to say that these letters never 
reached Le Chevalier, who was secretly confined in 
the tower of the Temple until Fouche decided his 
fate. He was rather an embarrassing prisoner ; as he 
could not be directly accused of the robbery of 
Quesnay in which he had not taken part, and as they 
feared to draw him into an affair to which his superb 
gift of speech, his importance as a Chouan gentle- 
man, his adventurous past and his eloquent professions 
of faith might give a political significance similar to 
that of Georges Cadoudal's trial, there remained only 
the choice of setting him at liberty or trying him 
simply as a royalist agent. Now, in 1808 they did 
not wish to mention royalists. It was understood 
that they were an extinct race, and orders were given 
to no longer speak of them to the public, which must 



PAYING THE PENALTY 219 

long since have forgotten that in very ancient days 
the Bourbons had reigned in France. 

Thus, Real did not know what was to become of 
Le Chevalier when Licquet conceived the idea of 
giving him a role in his comedy. We have not yet 
obtained all the threads of this new intrigue. 
Whether Licquet destroyed certain over-explicit 
papers, or whether he perferred in so delicate a matter 
to act without too much writing, there remain such 
gaps in the story that we have not been able to 
establish the correlation of the facts we are about to 
reveal. It is certain that the idea of exploiting Mme. 
Acquet's passion and promising her the freedom of 
her lover in exchange for a general confession, was 
originated by Licquet. He declares it plainly in a 
letter addressed to Real. By this means they obtained 
complete avowals from her. On December 12th she 
gave a detailed account of her adventurous life from the 
time of her departure from Falaise until her arrest ; a 
few days later she gave some details of the conspiracy 
of which d'Ache was the chief, to which we shall have 
to return. What must be noted at present is this re- 
markable coincidence: on the 12th she spoke, after 
receiving Licquet's formal promise to ensure Le 
Chevalier's escape, and on the 14th he actually es- 
caped from the Temple. Had Licquet been to Paris 
between these two dates ? It seems probable ; for 
he speaks in a letter of a " pretended absence " which 
might well have been real. 

The manner of Le Chevalier's escape is strange 
enough to be described. By reason of his excited 



220 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

condition, " which threw him into continual trans- 
ports, and which had seemed to the concierge of the 
prison to be the delirium of fever," he had been lodged, 
not in the tower itself, but in a dependence, one of 
whose walls formed the outer wall of the prison, and 
overlooked the exterior courts. He had been ill for 
several days, and being subject to profuse sweats had 
asked to have his sheets changed frequently, and so 
was given several pairs at a time. On December 13th, 
at eight in the morning, the keeper especially attached 
to his person (Savard) had gone in to arrange the little 
dressing-room next to Le Chevalier's chamber. Re- 
turning at one o'clock to serve dinner, he found the 
prisoner reading ; at six in the evening another keeper 
(Carabeuf ), bringing in a light, saw him stretched on 
his bed. The next day on going into his room in the 
morning, they found that he had fled. 

Le Chevalier had made in the wall of his dressing- 
room, which was two yards thick, a hole large enough 
to slip through. They saw that he had done it with 
no other tool than a fork; two bits of log, cut like 
wedges, had served to dislodge and pull out the stones. 
The operation had been so cleverly managed, all the 
rubbish having been carefully taken from within, that 
no trace of demolition appeared on the outside. The 
prisoner (Vandricourt) who was immediately below 
had not noticed any unwonted noise, although he did 
not go to bed till eleven o'clock. Le Chevalier, whose 
cell was sixteen feet above the level of the court, had 
also been obliged to construct a rope to descend by ; 
he had plaited it with long strips cut from a pair of 



PAYING THE PENALTY 221 

nankeen breeches and the cover of his mattress. 
Having got into the courtyard during the night by this 
means, he had to wait till the early morning when 
bread was brought in for the prisoners. The con- 
cierge of the Temple was in the habit of going back 
to bed after having admitted the baker, and the gate 
remained open for " a quarter of an hour and longer, 
while bread was being delivered at the wickets." 

People certainly escaped from the Temple as much 
as from any other prison. The history of the old 
tower records many instances of men rescued by their 
friends in the face of gaolers and guard, but confeder- 
ates were necessary for the success of these escapes. 
Given the topography of the Temple in 1807, it 
would seem impossible for one man alone, with no 
outside assistance, to have pierced a wall six feet 
thick in a few hours, and to have crossed the old 
garden of the grand prior, where in order to reach 
the street he would either have had to climb the other 
wall of the enclosure, or to pass the palace and courts 
to get to the door- — that of the Rue du Temple — 
which, as stated in the official report, remained open 
every morning for twenty minutes during the baker's 
visit. The impossibility of success leads us to think 
that if Le Chevalier triumphed over so many ob- 
stacles, it was because some one made it easy for him 
to do so. ^ 

Real put a man on his track who for ten years had 
been the closest confidant of the secrets of the police, 
and had conducted their most delicate affairs. This 
was Inspector Pasque. With Commissary Beffara, 



222 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

he set off on the search. Licquet, one of the first to 
be informed of Le Chevalier's escape, immediately 
showed Mme. Acquet the letter announcing it, taking 
care to represent it, confidentially, as his own work. 
He received in return a copious confession from his 
grateful prisoner. This time she emptied all the cor- 
ners of her memory, returning to facts already re- 
vealed, adding details, telling of all d' Ache's comings 
and goings, his frequent journeys to England, and of 
the manner in which David I'Intrepide crossed the 
channel. Licquet tried more than all to awaken her 
memories of Le Chevalier's relations with Parisian 
society. She knew that several oflicial personages 
were in the " plot," but unfortunately could not recol- 
lect their names, "although she had heard them 
mentioned, notably by Lefebre, with whom Le Chev- 
alier corresponded on this subject." However, as 
the detective persisted she pronounced these words, 
which Licquet eagerly noted : 

" One of these personages is in the Senate ; M. 
Lefebre knows him. Another was in ofiice during 
the Terror, and can be recognised by the following 
indications : he frequently sees Mme. Menard, sister 
of the widow, Mme. Flahaut, who has married M. 

de , now ambassador to Holland, it is believed. 

This lady lives sometimes at Falaise and sometimes 
in Paris, where she is at present. This individual is 
small, dark and slightly humped ; he has great intel- 
lect, and possesses the talent for intrigue in a high 
degree. The other personages are rich. The declar- 
ant cannot state their number. Le Chevalier in- 



PAYING THE PENALTY 223 

formed her that aiFairs were going well in Paris, that 
they were awaiting news of the Prince's arrival to 
declare for him/' 

Licquet compelled Mme. Acquet to repeat these 
important declarations before the prefect, and on the 
23d of December, she signed them in Savoye-Rollin's 
office. The same evening Licquet tried to put names 
to all these anonymous persons. With the prisoner 
by his side and the imperial almanac in his hand, he 
went over the list of senators, great dignitaries and 
notabilities of the army and the administration, but 
without success. " The names that were pronounced 
before her," he wrote to Real, " are effaced from her 
memory ; perhaps Lefebre will tell us who they are." 

The lawyer, in fact, since he saw things becoming 
blacker, had been very loquacious with Licquet. He 
cried with fear when in the prefect's presence, and 
promised to tell all he knew, begging them to have 
pity on " the unfortunate father of a family." He 
spoke so plainly, this time, that Licquet himself was 
astounded. The lawyer had it indeed from Le Chev- 
alier, that the day the Due de Berry landed in France, 
the Emperor would be arrested by two officers " who 
were always near his person, and who each of them 
would count on an army of forty thousand men ! " 
And when Lefebre was brought before the prefect to 
repeat this accusation, and gave the general's names, 
Savoye-Rollin was so petrified with astonishment that 
he dared not insert them in the official report of the 
inquiry ; furthermore, he refused to write them with 
his own hand, and compelled the lawyer himself to 



224 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

put on paper this blasphemy before which official pens 
recoiled. 

" Lefebre insists," wrote Savoy e-RoUin to Real, 
" that Le Chevalier would never tell him the names 
of all the conspirators. Lefebre has, however, given 
two names, one of which is so important and seems 
so improbable, that I cannot even admit a suspicion 
of it. Out of respect for the august alliance which 
he has contracted, I have not put his name in the re- 
port of the inquiry ; it is added to my letter, in a 
declaration written and signed by the prisoner." And 
in his letter there is a note containing these lines over 
Lefebre's signature : " I declare to Monsieur le Pre- 
fect de la Seine Inferieur that the two generals whom 
I did not name in my interrogation to-day and who 
were pointed out to me by M. le Chevalier, are the 
Generals Bernadotte and Massena." 

Bernadotte and Massena ! At the ministry of po- 
lice they pretended to laugh heartily at this foolish 
notion ; but perhaps some who knew the " true in- 
wardness " of certain old rivalries — Fouche above all 
— thought it less absurd and impossible than they ad- 
mitted it to be. This fiend of a man, with his way 
of searching to the bottom of his prisoners' con- 
sciences, was just the one to find out that in France 
Bonaparte was the sole partisan of the Empire. In 
any case these were not ideas to be circulated 
freely, and from that day Real promised himself 
that if Pasque and BefFara succeeded in finding Le 
Chevalier, he should never divulge them before any 
tribunal. 



PAYING THE PENALTY 225 

The two agents had established a system of sur- 
veillance on all the roads of Normandy, but without 
much hope : Le Chevalier, who had escaped so 
many spies and got out of so many snares during the 
past eight years, was considered to bear, as it were, a 
charmed life. He was taken, however, and as his 
escape had seemed to be the result of the detective's 
schemes, so in the manner in which he again fell into 
the hands of Real's agents was Licquet's handiwork 
again recognised. The latter, indeed, was the only 
one who knew enough to make the capture possible. 
In his long conversation with Mme. Acquet, he had 
learned that in leaving Caen in the preceding May, 
Le Chevalier had confided his five-year-old son to his 
servant Marie Humon, with orders to take him to his 
friend the Sieur Guilbot at Evreux. At the begin- 
ning of August the child had been taken to Paris and 
placed with Mme. Thiboust, Le Chevalier's sister-in- 
law. 

In what way was the son used to capture the 
father ? We have never been able thoroughly to 
clear up this mystery. The accounts that have been 
given of this great detective feat are evidently fan- 
tastic, and remain inexplicable without the interven- 
tion of a comrade betraying Le Chevalier after having 
given him unequivocal proofs of devotion. Thus, it 
has been said that Real, " having recourse to extraor- 
dinary means," could have caused the arrest of " the 
sister-in-law and daughter of the fugitive, and their 
incarceration in the prisons of Caen with filthy and 
disreputable women." Le Chevalier, informed of 



226 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

their incarceration — by whom ? — would have offered 
himself in place of the two women, and the police 
would have accepted the bargain. 

Told in this manner, the story does not at all agree 
with the documents we have been able to collect. 
Le Chevalier had no daughter, and no trace is to be 
found of the transference of Mme. Thiboust to 
Caen. The other version is no more admissible. 
Scarcely out of the Temple, we are assured, the out- 
law would not have been able to resist the desire to 
see his son, and would have sent to beg Mme. Thi- 
boust — by whom again ? — to bring him to the Passage 
des Panoramas. Naturally the police would follow 
the woman and child, and Le Chevalier be taken in 
their arms. It is difficult to imagine so sharp a man 
setting such a childish trap for himself, even if his 
adventurous life had not accustomed him for a long 
time to live apart from his family. 

The truth is certainly far otherwise. It is neces- 
sary, first of all, to know who let Le Chevalier out 
of prison. Mme. de Noel, one of his relations, said 
later, that " they had offered employment to the pris- 
oner if he would denounce his accomplice," which 
offer he haughtily refused. As his presence was em- 
barrassing, his gaolers were ordered " to let him go out 
on parole in the hope that he would not come back," 
and could then be condemned for escaping. Le 
Chevalier profited by the favour, but returned at the 
appointed time. This toleration was not at all sur- 
prising in this strange prison, the theatre of so 
many adventures that will always remain mysteries. 



PAYING THE PENALTY 227 

Desmarets tells how the concierge Boniface allowed 
an important prisoner, Sir Sidney Smith, to leave the 
Temple, " to walk, take baths, dine in town, and 
even go out hunting ; '' the commodore never failed 
to return to sleep in his cell, and "took back his 
parole in reentering." 

It was necessary then, for some one to undertake 
to get Le Chevalier out of the Temple, as he would 
not break his parole when he was outside ; and this 
explains the simulated escape. What cannot be es- 
tablished, unfortunately, is the part taken by Fouche 
and Real. Were they the instigators or the dupes ? 
Did they esteem it better to feign ignorance, or was 
it in reality the act of subalterns working unknown to 
their chiefs ? In any case, no one for a moment be- 
lieved in the wall two yards thick bored through in 
one night by the aid of a fork, any more than in the 
rope-ladder made from a pair of nankeen breeches. 
Real, in revenge, dismissed the concierge of the 
prison, put the gaoler Savard in irons, and exacted a 
report on " all the circumstances that could throw any 
light on the acquaintances the prisoner must have had 
in the prison to facilitate his escape." 

It seems very probable that Licquet, either directly 
or through an agent like Perlet, in whom Le Cheva- 
lier had the greatest confidence, had had a hand in 
this escape. As soon as the prisoner was free, as 
soon as Mme. Acquet had given up all her secrets as 
the price of her lover's liberty, it only remained to 
secure him again, and the means employed to gain 
this end must have been somewhat discreditable, for 



228 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

in the reports sent to the Emperor, who was daily in- 
formed of the progress of the affair, things were 
manifestly misrepresented. The following facts can- 
not be questioned : Le Chevalier had found in Paris 
"an impenetrable retreat where he could boldly defy 
all the efforts of the police ; " Fouche, guessing at the 
feelings of the fugitive, issued a warrant against Mme. 
Thiboust. By whom was Le Chevalier informed in 
his hiding-place of his sister-in-law's arrest? It is 
here, evidently, that a third person intervened. How- 
ever that may be, the outlaw wrote to Fouche " offer- 
ing to show himself as soon as the woman who acted 
as a mother to his son should be set at liberty." 
Fouche had Mme. Thiboust brought before him, and 
gave her a safe conduct of eight days for Le Cheva- 
lier, with positive and reiterated assurance that he 
would give him a passport for England as soon as he 
should deliver himself up. 

Mme. Thiboust returned home to the Rue des 
Martyrs, where Le Chevalier came to see her ; it was 
the evening of the 5th of January, 1808. He cov- 
ered his little son with kisses and put him in bed : 
the child always remembered the caresses he received 
that evening. Mme. Thiboust, who did not put 
much faith in Fouche's promises, begged her brother- 
in-law to flee. " No, no," he replied ; and later on 
she reported his answer thus : " The minister has 
kept his promise in setting you at liberty and I must 
keep mine — honour demands It ; to hesitate would be 
weak, and to fail would be a crime." On the morn- 
ing of the 6th, persuaded — or pretending to be — that 



PAYING THE PENALTY 229 

Fouche was going to assist his crossing to England, 
he embraced his child and sister-in-law. 

" Come," he said, " it is Twelfth-Night, and it is 
a fine day ; have a mass said for us, and get breakfast 
ready. I shall be back in two hours." 

Two hours later Inspector Pasque restored him to 
the Temple, and saw that he v/as put " hands and feet 
in irons, in the most rigorous seclusion, under the 
surveillance of a police agent who was not to leave 
him day or night/* 

The same evening Fouche sent the Emperor a re- 
port which contained no mention of the chivalrous 
conduct of Le Chevalier ; it said that " the police had 
seized this brigand at the house of a woman with 
whom he had relations, and that they had succeeded 
in throwing themselves upon him before he could use 
his weapons." On the morning of the 9th, Com- 
mandant Durand, of the staiF, presented himself at 
the Temple, and had the irons removed from the 
prisoner, who appeared at noon before a military 
commission in a hall in the staff office, 7 Quoi Vol- 
taire. This expeditious magistracy was so sparing of 
its paper and ink that it took no notes. It played, in 
the social organisation, the role of a trap into which 
were thrust such people as were found embarrassing. 
Some were condemned whose fate is only known be- 
cause their names have been found scribbled on a torn 
paper that served as an envelope for police reports. 

Le Chevalier was condemned to death ; he left the 
office of the staff at four o'clock and was thrown 
into the Abbaye to await execution. While the 



230 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

preparations were being made he wrote the following 
letter to Mme. Thiboust who had been three days 
without news, and it reached the poor woman the 
next day. 

^^ Saturday^ 9 January, 1808. 

" I am going to die, my sister, and I bequeath you 
my son. 1 do not doubt that you will show him all 
a mother's tenderness and care. I beg you also to 
have all the firmness and vigilance that I should have 
had in forming his character and heart. 

" Unfortunately, in leaving you the child that is so 
dear to me, I cannot also leave you a fortune equal 
to that which I inherited from my parents. I re- 
proach myself, more than for any other fault in my 
life, for having diminished the inheritance they trans- 
mitted to me. Bring him up according to his actual 
fortune, and make him an artisan, if you must, rather 
than commit him to the care of strangers. 

" One of my greatest regrets in quitting this life, 
is leaving it without having shown my gratitude to 
you and your daughter. 

" Good-bye ; I shall live, I hope, in your remem- 
brance, and you will keep me alive in that of my son. 

"Le Chevalier." 

Night had come — a cold misty winter night — when 
the cab that was to take the prisoner to his execution 
arrived at the door of the Abbaye. It was a long 
way from Saint-Germain-des-Pres to the barriers by 
way of the Rue du Four and Rue de Grenelle, the 
Avenue de I'Ecole Militaire, and the tortuous way 
that is now the Rue Dupleix. The damp fog made 
the night seem darker; few persons were about, and 
the scene must have been peculiarly gloomy and for- 



PAYING THE PENALTY 231 

bidding. The cab stopped in the angle formed by 
the barrier of Crenelle, and on the bare ground the 
condemned man stood with his back to the wall of 
the enclosure. It was the custom at night executions 
to place a lighted lantern on the breast of the victim 
as a target for the men. 

It was all over at six o'clock. While the troop 
was returning to town the grave-diggers took the 
corpse which had fallen beneath the wall and carried 
it to the cemetery of Vaugirard ; a neighbouring 
gardener and an old man of eighty, whom curiosity 
had led to the corpse of this unknown Chouan, served 
as witnesses to the death certificate. 

The death of Le Chevalier put an end to the pros- 
ecution of the afFair of Quesnay. He was one of 
those prisoners of whom the grand judge said " that 
they could not be set at liberty, but that the good of 
the State required that they should not appear before 
the judges " ; and they feared that by pushing the in- 
vestigations farther they might bring on some great 
political trial that would agitate the whole west of 
France, always ready for an insurrection, and shown 
in the reports to be organised for a new Chouan out- 
burst. It is certain that d'Ache's capture would have 
embarrassed Fouche seriously, and in default of caus- 
ing him to disappear like Le Chevalier, he would 
much have preferred to see him escape the pursuit of 
his agents. The absence of these two leaders in the 
plot would enable him to represent the robbery of 
June yth, as a simple act of brigandage which had no 
political significance whatever. 



232 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

They therefore imposed silence on the gabblings 
of Lefebre, who had become a prey to such incon- 
tinence of denunciations that he only stopped them 
to lament his fate and curse those who had drawn 
him into the adventure ; they moderated Licquet's 
zeal, and the prefect confided to him the drawing up 
of the general report of the affair, a task of which he 
acquitted himself so well that his voluminous work 
seemed to Fouche " sufficiently luminous and cir- 
cumstantial to be submitted as it was to his Majesty." 

Then they began, but in no haste, to concern 
themselves with the trial of the other prisoners. It 
was necessary, according to custom, to interrogate 
and confront the forty-seven persons imprisoned ; of 
this number the prosecution only held thirty-two, of 
whom twenty-three were present. These were 
Flierle, Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur d'Epine and Le 
Hericey who by Allain's orders had attacked the 
waggon ; the Marquise de Combray, her daughter 
and Lefebre, instigators of the crime; Gousset the 
carrier; Alexandre Buquet, Placene, Vannier, Lan- 
gelley, who had received the money ; Chauvel and 
Lanoe as accomplices, and the innkeepers of Lou- 
vigny, d'Aubigny and elsewhere who had entertained 
the brigands. Those absent were d'Ache, Allain, Le 
Lorault called " La Jeunesse," Joseph Buquet, the 
Dupont girl, and the friends of Le Chevalier or 
Lefebre who were compromised by the latter*s 
revelations — Courmaceul, Reverend, Dusaussay, etc., 
Grenthe, called " Coeur-ie-Roi," had died in the 
conciergerie during the enquiry. Mme. de Com- 



PAYING THE PENALTY 233 

bray's gardener, Chatel, had committed suicide a few 
days after his arrest. As to Placide d'Ache and Bon- 
noeil, it was decided not to bring them to trial but to 
take them later before a military commission. Every- 
thing was removed that could give the trial political 
significance. 

Mme. de Combray, who was at last enlightened 
as to the kind of interest taken in her by Licquet, and 
awakened from the illusions that the detective had so 
cleverly nourished, had been able to communicate 
directly with her family. Her son Timoleon had 
never approved of her political actions and since the 
Revolution had stayed away from Tournebut ; but as 
soon as he heard of their arrest he hurried to Rouen 
to be near his mother and brother in prison. The 
letters he exchanged with Bonnoeil, as soon as it was 
permitted, show a strong sense of the situation on the 
part of both, irreproachable honesty and profound 
friendship. This family, whom it suited Licquet to 
represent as consisting of spiteful, dissolute or mis- 
guided people, appears in a very different light in this 
correspondence. The two brothers were full of 
respect for their mother, and tenderly attached to 
their sister : unfortunate and guilty as she was, they 
never reproached her, nor made any allusion to facts 
well-known and forgiven. They were all leagued 
against the common enemy, Acquet, whom they con- 
sidered the cause of all their suffering. This man 
had returned from the Temple strengthened by the 
cowardly service he had rendered, and entered Don- 
nay in triumph ; he did not try to conceal his joy at 



234 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

all the catastrophes that had overtaken the Combrays, 
and treated them as vanquished enemies. The family 
held a council. The advice of Bonnoeil and Timo- 
leon, as well as of the Marquise, u^as to sacrifice 
everything to save Mme. Acquet. They knew that 
her husband's denunciations made her the chief cul- 
prit, and that the accusation would rest almost en- 
tirely on her. They determined to appeal to Chau- 
veau-Lagarde, whom the perilous honour of defending 
Marie-Antoinette before the Revolutionary tribunal 
had rendered illustrious. The great advocate under- 
took the defence of Mme. Acquet and sent a young 
secretary named Ducolombier, who usually lived with 
him, to Rouen to study the case — " an intriguer call- 
ing himself doctor," wrote Licquet scornfully. Du- 
colombier stayed in Rouen and set himself to examine 
the condition of the Combrays' fortune. Mme, de 
Combray had consented some years back to the sale 
of a part of her property, and Timoleon, in the hope 
of averting financial disaster and being of use to his 
mother by diminishing her responsibility, had suc- 
ceeded in having a trustee appointed for her. 

The matter was brought to Rouen and it was there 
that, " for the safety of the State," the trial took 
place that excited all Normandy in advance. Curios- 
ity was greatly aroused by the crime committed by 
" ladies of the chateau," and surprising revelations 
were expected, the examination having lasted more 
than a year and having brought together an army of 
witnesses from around Falaise and Tournebut. 
Mme. de Combray's house in the Rue des Carmel- 



PAYING THE PENALTY 235 

ites had become the headquarters of the defence. 
Mile. Querey had come out of prison after several 
weeks* detention, and was there looking after the 
little Acquets, who had been kept at the pension Du 
Saussay in ignorance of what was going on around 
them : the three children still suffered from the ill- 
treatment they had received in infancy. Timoleon 
also lived in the Rue des Carmelites when the inter- 
ests of his family did not require his presence in 
Falaise or Paris. There, also, lived Ducolombier, 
who had organised a sort of central office in the house 
where the lawyers of the other prisoners could come 
and consult. Mme. de Combray had chosen Maitre 
Gady de la Vigne of Rouen to defend her; Maitre 
Denise had charge of Fiierle's case, and Maitre le 
Bouvier was to speak for Lefebre and Placene. 

Chauveau-Lagarde arrived in Rouen on December 
I, 1808. He had scarcely done so when he received 
a long epistle from Acquet de Ferolles, in which the 
unworthy husband tried to dissuade him from under- 
taking the defence of his wife, and to ruin the little 
testimony for the defence that Ducolombier had col- 
lected. It seems that this scoundrelly proceeding im- 
mediately enlightened the eminent advocate as to the 
preliminaries of the drama, for from this day he 
proved for the Combray family not only a brilliant 
advocate, but a friend whose devotion never dimin- 
ished. 

The trial opened on December 15th in the great 
hall of the Palais. A crowd, chiefly peasants, col- 
lected as soon as the doors were opened in the part 



236 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

reserved for the public. A platform had been raised 
for the twenty-three prisoners, among whom all eyes 
searched for Mme. Acquet, very pale, indifferent or 
resigned, and Mme. de Combray, very much animated 
and with difficulty induced by her counsel to keep 
silent. Besides the president, Carel, the court was 
composed of seven judges, of whom three were mili- 
tary ; the imperial and special Procurer-General, 
Chopais-Marivaux, occupied the bench. 

From the beginning it was evident that orders had 
been given to suppress everything that could give 
political colour to the affair. As neither d'Ache, Le 
Chevalier, Allain nor Bonnoeil was present, nor any 
of the men who could claim the honour of being 
treated as conspirators and not as brigands, the judges 
only had the small fry of the plot before them, and 
the imperial commissary took care to name the chiefs 
only with great discretion. He did it by means of 
epithets, and in a melodramatic tone that caused the 
worthy people who jostled each other in the hall to 
shiver with terror. 

Never had the gilded panels, which since the time 
of Louis Xn had formed the ceiling of the great hall 
of the Palais, heard such astonishing eloquence ; for 
three hours the Procurer Chopais-Marivaux piled up 
his heavy sentences, pretentious to the point of unin- 
telligibility. When, after having recounted the facts, 
the magistrate came to the flight of Mme. Acquet 
and her sojourn with the Vanniers and Langelley, and 
it was necessary without divulging Licquet's proceed- 
ings to tell of her arrest, he became altogether in- 



PAYING THE PENALTY 237 

comprehensible. He must have thought himself 
lucky in not having before him, on the prisoners' 
bench, a man bold enough to show up the odious sub- 
terfuges that had been used in order to entrap the 
conspirators and obtain their confessions ; there is no 
doubt that such a revelation would have gained for 
the two guilty women, if not the leniency of the 
judges, the sympathy at least of the public, who all 
over the province were awaiting with anxious curios- 
ity the slightest details of the trial. The gazettes had 
been ordered to ignore it ; the "Journal de Rouen only 
spoke of it once to state that, as it lacked space to 
reproduce the whole trial, it preferred to abstain 
altogether \ and but for a few of Licquet's notes, 
nothing would be known of the character of the pro- 
ceedings. 

The interrogation of the accused and the examina- 
tion of the witnesses occupied seven sittings. On 
Thursday, December 22d, the Procurer-General de- 
livered his charge. The prosecution tried above all 
to show up the antagonism existing between Mme. 
de Combray and M. Acquet de Ferolles. The lat- 
ter's denunciations had borne fruit ; the Marquise 
was represented as having tried " to get rid of her son- 
in-law by poisoning his drink." And the old story 
of the bottles of wine sent to Abbe Clarisse and of 
his inopportune death were revived ; all the unpleas- 
ant rumours that had formerly circulated around Don- 
nay were amplified, made grosser, and elevated to the 
position of accomplished facts. It was decided that 
poison " was a weapon familiar to the Marquise of 



238 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Combray," and as, after having replied satisfactorily 
to all the first questions asked her, she remained mute 
on this point, a murmur of disapprobation ran round 
the audience, to the great joy of Licquet. " The 
prisoner," he notes, " whose sex and age at first ren- 
dered her interesting, has lost to-day every vestige of 
popularity." 

We know nothing of Mme. Acquet's examination, 
and but little of Chauveau-Lagarde's pleading ; a 
leaf that escaped from his portfolio and was picked up 
by Mme. de Combray gives a few particulars. This 
paper has some pencilled notes, and two or three ques- 
tions written to Mme. Acquet on the prisoners' 
bench, to which she scrawled a few words in reply. 
We find there a sketch of the theme which the advo- 
cate developed, doubtless to palliate his client's mis- 
conduct. 

" Mme. Acquet is reproached with her liaisons 
with Le Chevalier ; she can answer — or one can an- 
swer for her — that she suffered ill-treatment of all 
kinds for four years from a man who was her husband 
only from interest, so much so that he tried to get rid 
of her. . . . Fearful at one time of being poi- 
soned, at another of having her brains dashed out, 
. . . her suit for separation had brought her in 
touch with Le Chevalier, whom she had not known 
until her husband let him loose on her in order to 
bring about an understanding. . . ." 

During the fifteen sittings of the court a restless 
crowd filled the hall, the courts of the Palais, and the 
narrow streets leading to it. At eight o'clock in the 



PAYING THE PENALTY 239 

morning of December 30th, the president, Carel, de- 
clared the trial closed, and the court retired to " form 
its opinions." Not till three o'clock did the bell an- 
nounce the return of the magistrates. The verdict 
was immediately pronounced. Capital punishment 
was the portion of Mme. Acquet, Flierle, Lefebre, 
Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur d'Epine, Le Hericey, 
Gautier-Boismale, Lemarchand and Alexandre Buquet. 
The Marquise de Combray was condemned to twenty- 
two years' imprisonment in irons, and so were Le- 
rouge, called Bornet, Vannier and Bureau-Placene. 
The others were acquitted, but had to be detained 
" for the decision of his Excellency, the minister-of- 
police." The Marquise was, besides, to restore to 
the treasury the total sum of money taken. Whilst 
the verdict was being read, the people crowded against 
the barriers till they could no longer move, eagerly 
scanning the countenances of the two women. The 
old Marquise, much agitated, declaimed in a loud 
voice against the Procurer-General : " Ah ! the mon- 
ster ! The scoundrel ! How he has treated us ! " 

Mme. Acquet, pale and impassive, seemed oblivious 
of what was going on around her. When she heard 
sentence of death pronounced against her, she turned 
towards her defender, and Chauveau-Lagarde, rising, 
asked for a reprieve for his client. Although she had 
been in prison for fourteen months, sbe was, he said, 
" m an interesting condition." There was a murmur 
of astonishment in the hall, and while, during the ex- 
citement caused by this declaration, the court delib- 
erated on the reprieve, one of the condemned, Le 



240 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Hericey, leapt over the bar, fell with all his weight on 
the first rows of spectators, and by kicks and blows, 
aided by the general bewilderment, made a path for 
himself through the crowd, and amid shouts and 
shoves had already reached the door when a gendarme 
nabbed him in passing and threw him back into the 
hall, where, trampled on and overcome with blows, 
he was pushed behind the bar and taken away with 
the other condemned prisoners. The reprieve asked 
for Mme. Acquet was pronounced in the midst of the 
tumult, the crush at the door of the great hall being 
so great that many were injured. 

The verdict, which soon became known all over 
the town, was in general ill received. If the masses 
showed a dull satisfaction in the punishment of the 
Combray ladies, saying " that neither rank nor riches 
had counted, and that, guilty like the others, they were 
treated like the others," the bourgeois population of 
Rouen, still very indulgent to the royalists, disap- 
proved of the condemnation of the two women, who 
had only been convicted of a crime by which neither 
of them had profited. The reprieve granted to Mme. 
Acquet, "whose declaration had deceived no one," 
seemed a good omen, indicating a Commutation of her 
sentence. The nine " brigands " condemned to death 
received no pity. Lefebre was not known in Rouen, 
and his attitude during the trial had aroused no sym- 
pathy ; the others were but vulgar actors in the drama, 
and only interested the populace hungry for a specta- 
cle on the scafFold. The executions would take place 
immediately, the judgments pronounced by the special 



PAYING THE PENALTY 241 

court being without appeal, like those of the former 
revolutionary tribunals. 

The nine condemned men were taken to the con- 
ciergerie. It was night when their " toilet " was be- 
gun. The high-executioner, Charles-Andre Ferey, 
of an old Norman family of executioners, had called 
on his cousins Joanne and Desmarets to help him, 
and while the scaffold was being hastily erected on the 
Place du Vieux-Marche, they made preparations in 
the prison. In the anguish of this last hour on earth 
Flierle's courage weakened. He sent a gaoler to the 
imperial procurer to ask " if a reprieve would be 
granted to any one who would make important reve- 
lations." On receiving a negative reply the German 
seemed to resign himself to his fate. " Since that is 
the case," he said, " I will carry my secret to the 
tomb with me." 

The doors of the conciergerie did not open until 
seven in the evening. By the light of torches the 
faces of the condemned were seen in the cart, moving 
above the crowds thronging the narrow streets. The 
usual route from the prison to the scaffold was by the 
Rue du Gros-Horloge, and this funeral march by 
torchlight and execution at midnight in December 
must have been a terrifying event. The crowd, kept 
at a distance, probably saw nothing but the glimmer- 
ing light of the torches in the misty air, and the 
shadowy forms moving on the platform. According 
to the 'Journal de Rouen of the next day, Flierle 
mounted first, then Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur 
d'Epine and Le Hericey who took part with him in 



242 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

the attack on June 7th. Lefebre " passed " sixth. 
The knife struck poor Gautier-Boismale badly, as 
well as Alexandre Buquet, who died last. The agony 
of these two unfortunates was horrible, prolonged as 
it was by the repairs necessary for the guillotine to 
continue its work. The bloody scene did not end till 
half-past eight in the morning. 

The next day, December 31st, the exhibition on the 
scaffold of Mme. de Combray, Placene, Vannier, and 
Lerouge, all condenmed to twenty-two years* impris- 
onment, was to take place. But when they went to 
the old Marquise's cell she was found in such a state 
of exasperation, fearful crises of rage being succeeded 
by deep dejection, that they had to give up the idea 
of removing her. The three men alone were there- 
fore tied to the post, where they remained for six 
hours. As soon as they returned to the conciergerie 
they were sent in irons to the House of Detention at 
the general hospital, whence they were to go to the 
convict prison. 

The Marquise had not twenty-two years to live. 
The thought of ending her days in horrible Bicetre 
with thieves, beggars and prostitutes ; the humiliation 
of having been defeated, deceived and made ridiculous 
in the eyes of all Normandy ; and perhaps more than 
all, the sudden comprehension that it had all been a 
game, that the Revolution would triumph in the end, 
that she, a great and powerful lady — -noble, rich, a 
royalist — was treated the same as vulgar criminals, 
was so cruel a blow, that it was the general impression 
that she would succumb to it. It is impossible now- 



PAYING THE PENALTY 



243 



adays to realise what an effect these revelations must 
have produced on a mind obstinately set against all 
democratic realities. For nearly a month the Mar- 
quise remained in a state of stupefaction ; from the 
day of her condemnation till January 15th it was im- 
possible to get her to take any kind of nourishment. 
She knew that they were watching for the moment 
when she would be strong enough to stand the pillory, 
and perhaps she had resolved to die of hunger. There 
had been some thought — and this compassionate idea 
seems to have originated with Licquet — of sparing the 
aged woman this supreme agony, but the Procurer- 
General showed such bitter zeal in the execution of 
the sentence, that the prefect received orders from 
Real to proceed. He writes on January 29th : " I am 
informed of her condition daily. She now takes light 
nourishment, but is still extremely feeble; we could 
not just now expose this woman to the pillory without 
public scandal." 

What was most feared was the indignation of the 
public at sight of the torture uselessly inflicted on an 
old woman who had already been sufficiently pun- 
ished. The prefect's words, "without scandal," 
showed how popular feeling in Rouen had revolted at 
the verdict. More than one story got afloat. As the 
details of the trial were very imperfectly known, no 
journal having published the proceedings, it was said 
that the Marquise's only crime was her refusal to de- 
nounce her daughter, and widespread pity was felt for 
this unhappy woman who was considered a martyr to 
maternal love and royalist faith. Perhaps some of 



244 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

this universal homage was felt even in the prison, for 
tovi^ards the middle of February the Marquise seemed 
calmer and morally strengthened. The authorities 
profited by this to order her punishment to proceed. 
It was February the 17th, and as one of her " attacks " 
was feared, they prudently took her by surprise. She 
was told that Dr. Ducolombier, coming from 
Chauveau-Lagarde, asked to see her at the wicket. 
She went down without suspicion and was astonished 
to find in place of the man she expected, two others 
whom she had never seen. One was the executioner 
Ferey, who seized her hands and tied her. The doors 
opened, and seeing the gendarmes, the cart and the 
crowd, she understood, and bowed her head in resigna- 
tion. 

On the Place du Vieux-Marche the scaffold was 
raised, and a post to which the text of the verdict 
was affixed. The prisoner was taken up to the plat- 
form ; she seemed quite broken, thin, yet very im- 
posing, with her still black hair, and her air of " lady 
of the manor." She was dressed in violet silk, and 
as she persisted in keeping her head down, her face 
was hidden by the frills of her bonnet. To spare her 
no humiliation Ferey pinned them up ; he then made 
her sit on a stool and tied her to the post, which 
forced her to hold up her head. 

What she saw at the foot of the scaffold brought 
tears of pride to her eyes. In the first row of the 
crowd that quietly and respectfully filled the place, 
ladies in sombre dresses were grouped as close as pos- 
sible to the scaffold, as if to take a voluntary part in 



PAYING THE PENALTY 245 

the punishment of the old Chouanne ; and during the 
six hours that the exhibition lasted the ladies of high- 
est rank and most distinguished birth in the town 
came by turns to keep her company in her agony ; 
some of them even spread flowers at the foot of the 
scaffold, thus transforming the disgrace into an apoth- 
eosis. 

The heart of the Marquise, which had not softened 
through seventeen months of torture and anxiety, 
melted at last before this silent homage ; tears were 
seen rolling down her thin cheeks, and the crowd was 
touched to see the highest ladies in the town sitting 
round this old unhappy woman, and saluting her with 
solemn courtesies. 

At nightfall Mme. de Combray was taken back to 
the conciergerie ; later in the evening she was sent to 
Bicetre, and several days afterwards Chopais-Mari- 
vaux, thinking he had served the Master well, begged 
as the reward of his zeal for the cross of the Legion 
of Honour. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FATE OF d'ACHE 

D'AcHE, however, had not renounced his plans ; 
the arrest of Le Chevalier, Mme. de Combray and 
Mme. Acquet was not enough to discourage him. 
It was, after all, only one stake lost, and he was the 
sort to continue the game. It is not even certain 
that he took the precaution, when Licquet was search- 
ing for him all over Normandy, to leave the Chateau 
of Montfiquet at Mandeville, where he had lived 
since his journey to England in the beginning of 
1807. Ten months after the robbery of Quesnay he 
was known to be in the department of the Eure; 
Licquet, who had just terminated his enquiry, posted 
to Louviers ; d'Ache, he found, had been there three 
days previously. From where had he come ? From 
Tournebut, where, in spite of the search made, he 
could have lived concealed for six months in some 
well-equipped hiding-place ? Unlikely as this seems, 
Licquet was inclined to believe it, so much was his 
own cunning disconcerted by the audacious cleverness 
of his rival. The letter in which he reports to Real 
his investigation in the Eure, is stamped with deep 
discouragement ; he did not conceal the fact that the 
pursuit of d'Ache was a task as deceptive as it was 
useless. Perhaps he also thought that Le Chevalier's 

246 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 247 

case was a precedent to be followed ; d'Ache would 
have been a very undesirable prisoner to bring before 
a tribunal, and to get rid of him without scandal 
would be the best thing for the State. Licquet felt 
that an excess of zeal, bringing on a spectacular ar- 
rest such as that of Georges Cadoudal, would be ill- 
received in high quarters, and he therefore showed 
some nonchalance in his search for the conspirator. 

D'Ache, meanwhile, showed little concern on 
learning of the capture of his accomplices. Lost in 
his illusions he took no care for his own safety, and 
remained at Mandeville, organising imaginary legions 
on paper, arranging the stages of the King's journey 
to Paris, and discussing v/ith the Montfiquets certain 
points of etiquette regarding the Prince's stay at their 
chateau on the day following his arrival in France. 
One day, however, when they were at table — it was 
in the spring of 1808 — a stranger arrived at the 
Chateau de Mandeville, and asked for M. Alexandre 
(the name taken by d'Ache, it will be remembered, 
at Bayeux). D'Ache saw the man himself, and 
thinking his manner suspicious, and his questions in- 
discreet, he treated him as a spy and showed him the 
door, but not before the intruder had launched several 
threats at him. 

This occurrence alarmed M. de Montfiquet, and 
he persuaded his guest to leave Mandeville for a time. 
During the following night they both started on foot 
for Rubercy, where M. Gilbert de Mondejen, a great 
friend and confidant of d'Ache's, was living in hiding 
from the police in the house of a Demoiselle Genne- 



248 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

ville. This old lady, who was an ardent royalist, 
welcomed the fugitives warmly ; they were scarcely 
seated at breakfast, however, when a servant gave the 
alarm. " Here come the soldiers ! " she cried. 

D'Ache and Mondejen rushed from the room and 
bounded across the porch into the courtyard just as 
the gendarmes burst in at the gate. They would 
have been caught if a horse had not slipped on the 
wet pavement and caused some confusion, during 
which they shut themselves into a barn, escaped by a 
door at the back, and jumping over hedges and ditches 
gained a little wood on the further side of the Tortoue 
brook. 

But d'Ache had been seen, and from that day he 
was obliged to resume his wandering existence, living 
in the woods by day and tramping by night. He was 
entirely without resources, for he had no money, but 
was certain of finding a refuge, in case of need, in 
this region where malcontents abounded and all doors 
opened to them. In this way he reached the forest 
of Serisy, a part of which had formerly belonged to 
the Montfiquets; it was here that the abandoned 
mines were situated that had been mentioned to Lic- 
quet as Allain's place of refuge. Though obliged to 
abandon the Chateau de Mandeville, where, as well 
as at Rubercy, the gendarmes had made a search, 
d'Ache did not lack shelter around Bayeux. A Ma- 
dame Chivre, who lived on the outskirts of the town, 
had for fifteen years been the providence of the most 
desperate Chouans, and d'Ache was sure of a wel- 
come from her; but he stayed only a few days. 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 249 

Mme. Amfrye also assisted him. This woman who 
never went out except to church, and was seen every 
morning with eyes downcast, walking to Saint-Patrice 
with her servant carrying her prayer book, was one 
of the fiercest royalists of the region. She looked 
after the emigrants* funds and took charge of their 
correspondence. Once a week a priest rang her 
door-bell ; it was the Abbe Nicholas, cure of Vier- 
ville, a little fishing village. The Abbe, whose char- 
ity was proverbial, and accounted for his visits to 
Mme. Amfrye, was in reality a second David Tln- 
trepide ; mass said and his beads told, he got into a 
boat and went alone to the islands of Saint-Marcouf, 
where an exchange of letters was made with the 
English emissaries, the good priest bringing his packet 
back to Bayeux under his soutane. 

D'Ache could also hide with Mademoiselle Dumes- 
nil, or Mile. Duquesnay de Montfiquet, to both of 
whom he had been presented by Mme. de Vaubadon, 
an ardent royalist who had rendered signal service to 
the party during the worst days of the Terror. She 
was mentioned among the Normans who had shown 
most intelligent and devoted zeal for the cause. 

Born de Mesnildot, niece of Tourville, she had 
married shortly before the Revolution M. le Tellier 
de Vaubadon, son of a member of^ the Rouen Parlia- 
ment, a handsome man, amiable, loyal, elegant, and 
most charmingly sociable. She was medium-sized, 
not very pretty, but attractive, with a very white skin, 
tawny hair, and graceful carriage. Two sons were 
born of this union, and on the outbreak of the Revo- 



250 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

lution M. de Vaubadon emigrated. After several 
months of retreat in the Chateau of Vaubadon, the 
young woman tired of her grass-widowhood, which 
seemed as if it would be eternal, and returned to 
Bayeux where she had numerous relations. The 
Terror was over; life was reawakening, and the 
gloomy town gave itself up to it gladly. " Never 
were balls, suppers, and concerts more numerous, 
animated and brilliant in Bayeux than at this period." 
Mme. de Vaubadon's success was marked. When 
some of her papers were seized in the year IX the 
following note from an adorer was found : " All the 
men who have had the misfortune to see you have 
been mortally wounded. I therefore implore you not 
to stay long in this town, not to leave your apartment 
but at dusk, and veiled. We hope to cure our in- 
valids by cold baths and refreshing drinks; but be 
gracious enough not to make incurables." 

So that her children should not be deprived of their 
father's fortune, which the nation could sequestrate 
as the property of an emigre^ Mme. de Vaubadon, like 
many other royalists, had sued for a divorce. All 
those who had had recourse to this extremity had 
asked for an annulment of the decree as soon as their 
husbands could return to France, and had resumed 
conjugal relations. But Mme. de Vaubadon did not 
consider her divorce a mere formality ; she intended 
to remain free, and even brought suit against her hus- 
band for the settlement of her property. This act, 
which was severely criticised by the aristocracy of 
Bayeux, alienated many of her friends and placed her 



THE FATE OF D'ACHfi 251 

somewhat on the outskirts of society. From that 
time lovers were attributed to her, and it is certain 
that her conduct became more light. She scarcely 
concealed her liaison with Guerin de Bruslart, the 
leader of the Norman Chouans, the successor of 
Frotte, and a true type of the romantic brigand, who 
managed to live for ten years in Normandy and even 
in Paris, without falling into one of the thousand 
traps set for him by Fouche. Bruslart arrived at his 
mistress's house at night, his belt bristling with pistols 
and poniards, and " always ready for a desperate 
hand-to-hand fight." 

Together with this swaggerer Mme. de Vaubadon 
received a certain OUendon, a Chouan of doubtful 
reputation, who was said to have gone over to the 
police through need of money. Mme. de Vaubadon, 
since her divorce, had herself been in a precarious 
position. She had dissipated her own fortune, which 
had already been greatly lessened by the Revolution. 
She was now reduced to expedients, and seeing closed 
to her the doors of many of the houses in Bayeux to 
which her presence had formerly given tone, she went 
to Caen and settled in the Rue Guilbert nearly op- 
posite the Rue Coupee. 

Whether it was that Ollendon had decided to profit 
by her relations with the Chouans, or that Fouche had 
learned that she was in need and would not refuse 
good pay for her services, Mme. de Vaubadon was 
induced to enter into communication with the police. 
The man whom in 1793 Charlotte Corday had im- 
mortally branded with a word, Senator Doulcet de 



252 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Pontecoulant, undertook to gain this recruit for the 
imperial government. 

If certain traditions are to be trusted, Pontecoulant, 
who was supposed to be one of Acquet de Ferolles' 
protectors, had insinuated to Mme. de Vaubadon that 
" her intrigues with the royalists had long been known 
in high places, and an order for her arrest and that of 
d'Ache, who was said to be her lover, was about to 
be issued." " You understand," he added, " that the 
Emperor is as merciful as he is powerful, that he has 
a horror of punishment and only wants to conciliate, 
but that he must crush, at all costs, the aid given to 
England by the agitation on the coasts. Redeem 
your past. You know d'Ache's retreat : get him to 
leave France; his return will be prevented, but the 
certainty of his embarkation is wanted, and you will 
be furnished with agents who will be able to testify 
to it." 

In this way Mme. de Vaubadon would be led to 
the idea of revealing d'Ache's retreat, believing that 
it was only a question of getting him over to Eng- 
land; but facts give slight support to this sugared 
version of the affair. After the particularly odious 
drama that we are about to relate, all who had taken 
part in it tried to prove for themselves a moral alibi, 
and to throw on subordinates the horror of a crime 
that had been long and carefully prepared. Fouche, 
whom few memories disturbed, was haunted by this 
one, and attributed to himself a role as chivalrous as 
unexpected. According to him, d'Ache, in extremity, 
had tried a bold stroke. This man, who, since 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 253 

Georges* death, had so fortunately escaped all the 
spies of France, had of his own will suddenly pre- 
sented himself before the Minister of Police, to con- 
vert him to royalist doctrines ! Fouche had shown a 
loyalty that equalled his visitor's boldness. " I do 
not wish," he said, " to take advantage of your bold- 
ness and have you arrested hie et nunc ; I give you 
three days to get out of France ; during this time 
I will ignore you completely ; on the fourth day I 
will set my men on you, and if you are taken you 
must bear the consequences." 

This is honourable, but without doubt false. Be- 
sides the improbability of this conspirator offering 
himself without reason to the man who had hunted 
him so long, it is difficult to imagine that such a 
meeting could have taken place without any mention 
of it being made in the correspondence in the case. 
None of the letters exchanged between the Minister 
of Police and the prefects makes any allusion to this 
visit ; it seems to accord so little with the character 
of either that it must be relegated to the ranks of the 
legends with which Fouche sought to hide his per- 
fidies. It is certain that a snare was laid for d'Ache, 
that Mme. de Vaubadon was the direct instrument, 
that Pontecoulant acted as intermediary between the 
minister and the woman ; but the inventor of the 
stratagem is unknown. A simple recital of the facts 
will show that all three of those named are worthy to 
have combined in it. 

Public rumour asserts that Mme. de Vaubadon had 
been d'Ache's mistress, but she did not now know 



254 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

where he was hidden. In the latter part of August, 
1809, she went to Bayeux to find out from her friend 
Mile. Duquesnay de Montfiquet if d'Ache was in the 
neighbourhood, and if so, with whom. Mile, de 
Montfiquet, knowing Mme. de Vaubadon to be one 
of the outlaw's most intimate friends, told her that 
he had been living in the town for a long time, and 
that she went to see him every week. The matter 
ended there, and after paying some visits, Mme. de 
Vaubadon returned by coach the same evening to 
Caen. 

It became known later that she had a long inter- 
view with Pontecoulant the next day, during which it 
was agreed that she should deliver up d'Ache, in re- 
turn for which Fouche would pay her debts and give 
her a pension. But she attached a strange condition 
to the bargain ; she refused " to act with the authori- 
ties, and only undertook to keep her promise if they 
put at her disposal, while leaving her completely in- 
dependent, a non-commissioned officer of gendar- 
merie, whom she was to choose herself, and who 
would blindly obey her orders, without having to re- 
port to his chiefs." Perhaps the unfortunate woman 
hoped to retain d' Ache's life in her keeping, and save 
him by some subterfuge, but she had to deal with 
Pontecoulant, Real and Fouche, three experienced 
players whom it was difficult to deceive. They ac- 
cepted her conditions, only desiring to get hold of 
d'Ache, and determined to do away with him as soon 
as they should know where to catch him. 

On Thursday, September 5th, Mme. de Vaubadon 



THE FATE OF D'ACH£ 255 

reappeared in Bayeux, and went to Mile. Duquesnay 
de Montfiquet to tell her of the imminent danger 
d'Ache was in, and to beg her to ensure his safety 
by putting her in communication with him. We 
now follow the story of a friend of Mme. de Vau- 
badon's family who tried to prove her innocent, if not 
of treachery, at least of the crime that was the result 
of it. Mile, de Montfiquet had great confidence in 
her friend's loyalty, but not in her discretion, and ob- 
stinately refused to take Mme. de Vaubadon to 
d'Ache. The former, fearing that action would be 
taken without her, returned to the charge, but en- 
countered a firm determination to be silent that ren- 
dered her insistence fruitless. In despair at the pos- 
sibility of having aroused suspicions that might lead 
to the disappearance of d'Ache, she resolved not to 
leave the place. 

" I do not wish to be seen in Bayeux," she said to 
her friend, " I am going to sleep here." 

*' But I have only one bed." 

" I will share it with you." 

During the night, as the two women's thoughts 
kept them from sleeping, Mme. de Vaubadon changed 
her tactics. 

" You have no means of saving him," she hinted, 
" whilst all my plans are laid. I have at my disposal 
a boat that for eight or nine hundred francs will take 
him to England ; I have some one to take him to the 
coast, and two sailors to man the boat. If you will 
not tell me his retreat, at least make a rendezvous 
where my guide can meet him. If you refuse he 



256 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

may be arrested to-morrow, tried, and shot, and the 
responsibility for his death will fall on you." 

Mile, de Montfiquet gave up ; she promised to 
persuade d'Ache to go to England. It was now Fri- 
day, September 6th. It was settled that at ten o'clock 
in the evening of the following day she herself should 
take him to the village of Saint-Vigor-le-Grand, at 
the gates of Bayeux. She would advance alone to 
meet the guide sent by Mme. de Vaubadon ; the men 
would say " Samson," to which Mile, de Montfiquet 
would answer " Felix," and only after the exchange 
of these words would she call d'Ache, hidden at a 
distance. 

Mme. de Vaubadon returned to Caen, arriving at 
home before midday. Most of the frequenters of her 
salon at this period were aspirants for her favours, 
and among whom was a young man of excellent 
family, M. Alfred de Formigny, very much in love, 
and consequently very jealous of Ollendon, who was 
then supposed to be the favoured lover. In the even- 
ing of this day, M. de Formigny went to Mme. de 
Vaubadon's. He was told that she was not at home, 
but as he saw a light on the ground floor, and thought 
he could distinguish the silhouette of a man against 
the curtains, he watched the house and ascertained 
that its mistress was having an animated conversation 
with a visitor whose back only could be seen, and 
whom he believed to be his rival. Wishing to make 
sure of it, and determined to have an explanation, he 
stood sentinel before the door of the house. " Soon 
a man wrapped in a cloak came out, who, seeing that 



TFIE FATE OF D'ACHE 257 

he was watched, pulled the folds of it up to his eyes. 
M. de Formigny, certain that it was Ollendon, threw 
himself on the man, and forced off the cloak." But 
he felt very sheepish when he found himself face to 
face with Foison, quartermaster of gendarmerie, who, 
not less annoyed, growled out a few oaths, and hastily 
made off. The same evening M. de Formigny told 
his adventure to some of his friends, but his indiscre- 
tion had no consequences, it seemed, Mme. de Vau- 
badon's reputation being so much impaired that a 
new scandal passed unnoticed. 

Meanwhile Mile, de Montfiquet had kept her 
promise. As soon as her friend left her, she went to 
Mile. Dumesnil's, where d'Ache had lived for the last 
six weeks, and told him of Mme. de Vaubadon's 
proposition. The offer was so tempting, it seemed 
so truly inspired by the most zealous and thoughtful 
affection, and came from so trusted a friend, that he 
did not hesitate to accept. It appears, however, that 
he was not in much danger in Bayeux, and took little 
pains to conceal himself, for on Saturday morning he 
piously took the sacrament at the church of Saint- 
Patrice, then returned to Mile. Dumesnil's and ar- 
ranged some papers. As soon as it was quite dark 
that evening Mile, de Montfiquet came to fetch him, 
and found him ready to start. He was dressed in a 
hunting jacket of blue cloth, trousers of ribbed green 
velvet and a waistcoat of yellow pique. He put two 
loaded English pistols in the pockets of his jacket and 
carried a sword-cane. Mile, de Montfiquet gave him 
a little book of " Pensees Chretiennes," in which 



258 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

she had written her name ; then, accompanied by her 
servant, she led him across the suburbs to Saint-Vigor- 
le-Grand. She found Mme. de Vaubadon's guide at 
the rendezvous before the church door ; it u^as Foison, 
whom she recognised. The passwords exchanged, 
d'Ache came forward, kissed Mile, de Montfiquet's 
hand, bade her adieu, and started with the gendarme. 
The anxious old lady followed him several steps at a 
distance, and saw standing at the end of the wall of 
the old priory of Saint-Vigor, two men in citizen's 
dress, who joined the travellers. All four took the 
cross road that led by the farm of Caugy to Villiers- 
le-Sec. They wished, by crossing the Seule at Re- 
viers, to get to the coast at Luc-sur-Mer, seven 
leagues from Bayeux, where the embarkation was to 
take place. 

When d'Ache and his companions left Bayeux, 
Luc-sur-Mer was in a state of excitement. The 
next day, Sunday, lots were to be drawn for the Na- 
tional Guard, and the young people of the village, 
knowing that this fete was only " conscription in dis- 
guise," had threatened to prevent the ceremony,, to 
surround the Malrie and burn the registers and the 
recruiting papers. What contributed to the general 
uneasiness was the fact that four men who were 
known to be gendarmes in disguise had been hovering 
about, chiefly on the beach ; they had had the audacity 
to arrest two gunners, coast-guards in uniform and 
on duty, and demand their papers. A serious brawl 
had ensued. At night the same men " suddenly 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 259 

thrust a dark lantern In the face of every one they 
met." 

M. Boullee, the Mayor of Luc, lived at the hamlet 
of Notre-Dame-de-la-Delivrande, some distance from 
the town, and in much alarm at the disturbances 
watched with his servants through part of the night 
of the 7th-8th. At one o'clock in the morning, 
while he was with them in a room on the ground 
floor, a shot was heard outside and a ball struck the 
window frame. They rushed to the door, and in the 
darkness saw a man running away ; the cartouche 
was still burning in the courtyard. M. Boullee im- 
mediately sent to the coast-guards to inform them of 
the fact, and to ask for a reinforcement of two men who 
did not arrive till near four o'clock. Having passed 
the night patrolling at some distance from La Deliv- 
rande, they had not heard the shot that had alarmed 
the mayor, but towards half-past three had heard 
firing and a loud " Help, help ! " in the direction of 
the junction of the road from Bayeux with that lead- 
ing to the sea. 

It was now dawn and M. Boullee, reassured by the 
presence of the two gunners, resolved to go out and 
explore the neighbourhood. On the road to Luc, 
about five hundred yards from his house, a peasant 
hailed him, and showed him, behind a hayrick almost 
on the edge of the road, the body of a man. The 
face had received so many blows as to be almost 
unrecognisable ; the left eye was coming out of the 
socket ; the hair was black, but very grey on the 
temples, and the beard thin and short, The man lay 



26o THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

on his back, with a loaded pistol on each side, about 
two feet from the body ; the blade and sheath of a 
sword-cane had rolled a little way off, and near them 
was the broken butt-end of a double-barrelled gun. 
On raising the corpse to search the pockets, the hands 
were found to be strongly tied behind the back. No 
papers were found that could give any clue to his 
identity, but only a watch, thirty francs in silver, and 
a little book on the first page of which was written 
the name " Duquesnay de Montfiquet." 

The growing daylight now made an investigation 
possible. Traces of blood were found on the road to 
Luc from the place where the body lay, to its junc- 
tion with the road to Bayeux, a distance of about two 
hundred yards. It was evident that the murder had 
been committed at the spot where the two roads met, 
and that the assassins had carried the corpse to the 
fields and behind the hayrick to retard discovery of the 
crime. The disguised gendarmes whose presence 
had so disturbed the townsfolk had disappeared. A 
horse struck by a ball was lying in a ditch. It was 
raised, and though losing a great deal of blood, 
walked as far as the village of Mathieu, on the road 
to Caen, where it was stabled. 

These facts having been ascertained, M. Boullee*s 
servants and the peasants whom curiosity had at- 
tracted to the spot, escorted the dead body, which 
had been put on a wheelbarrow, to La Delivrande. 
It was laid in a barn near the celebrated chapel of 
pilgrimages, and there the autopsy took place at five 
in the afternoon. It was found that " death was due 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 261 

to a wound made by the blade of the sword-cane ; 
the weapon, furiously turned in the body, had lacer- 
ated the intestines/' Three balls had, besides, struck 
the victim, and five buckshot had hit him full in the 
face and broken several teeth ; of two balls fired close 
to the body, one had pierced the chest above the left 
breast, and the other had broken the left thigh, and 
one of the murderers had struck the face so violently 
that his gun had broken against the skull. 

The mayor had been occupied with the drawing of 
lots all day, and only found time to write and inform 
the prefect of the murder when the doctors had com- 
pleted their task. He was in great perplexity, for the 
villagers unanimously accused the gendarmes of the 
mysterious crime. It was said that at dawn that 
morning the quartermaster Foison and four of his 
men had gone into an inn at Mathieu, one of them 
carrying a gun with the butt-end broken. While 
breakfasting, these " gentlemen," not seeing a child 
lying in a closed bed, had taken from a tin box some 
" yellow coins " which they divided, and the infer- 
ence drawn was that the gendarmes had plundered a 
traveller whom they knew to be well-supplied, and 
sure of impunity since they could always plead a case 
of rebellion, had got rid of him by murder. This was 
the sense of the letter sent to Caffarelli by the Mayor 
of Luc on the evening, of the 8th. The next morn- 
ing Foison appeared at La Delivrande to draw up the 
report. When Boullee asked him a few questions 
about the murder, he answered in so arrogant and 
menacing a tone as to make any enquiry impossible. 



262 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Putting on a bold face, he admitted that he had been 
present at the scene of the crime. He said that 
while he was patrolling the road to Luc with four of 
his men, two individuals appeared whom he asked for 
their papers. One of them immediately fled, and the 
other discharged his pistols ; the gendarmes seized 
him, and in spite of his desperate resistance succeeded 
in bringing him down. He stayed dead on the 
ground, " having been struck several times during the 
struggle." 

" But his pistols were still loaded," said some one. 

Foison made no reply. 

" But his hands were tied," said the mayor. 

Foisin tried to deny it. 

" Here are the bands," said Boullee, drawing from 
his pocket the ribbon taken from the dead man's 
hands. And as Captain Mancel, who presided at the 
interview, remarked that those were indeed the bands 
used by gendarmes, Foison left the room with more 
threats, swearing that he owed an account to no one. 

The news of the crime had spread with surprising 
rapidity, and indignation was great wherever it was 
heard. In writing to Real, Caffarelli echoed public 
feeling : 

" How did it happen that four gendarmes were un- 
able to seize a man who had struggled for a long 
time ? How came it that he was, in a way, muti- 
lated ? Why, after having killed this man, did they 
leave him there, without troubling to comply with 
any of the necessary formalities ? Ask these ques- 
tions, M. le Comte ; the public is asking them and 



THE FATE OF D'ACH£ 263 

finds no answer. What is the reply, if, moreover, as 
is said, the person was seized, his hands tightly tied 
behind his back, and then shot ? What are the ter- 
rible consequences to be expected from these facts if 
they are true ? How will the gendarmes be able to 
fulfil their duties without fear of being treated as as- 
sassins or wild beasts ? '' 

It must be mentioned that as soon as the crime 
was committed, Foison had gone to Caen and given 
Pontecoulant the papers found on d'Ache, which con- 
tained information as to the political and military sit- 
uation on the coast of Normandy, and on the pos- 
sibility of a disembarkation. Pontecoulant had im- 
mediately posted ofF, and on the morning of the nth 
told Fouche verbally of the manner in which Foison 
and Mme. de Vaubadon had acquitted themselves of 
their mission. It remained to be seen how the public 
would take things, and Caffarelli's letter presaged no 
good ; what would it be when it became known that 
the gendarme assassins had acted with the authorisa- 
tion of the government ? Happily, a confusion arose 
that retarded the discovery of the truth. In the hope 
of determining the dead man's identity, the Mayor of 
Luc had exposed the body to view, and many had 
come to see it, including some people from Caen. 
Four of these had unanimously recognised the corpse 
as that of a clock-maker of Paris, named Morin- 
Cochu, well known at the fairs of Lower Normandy. 
Fouche allowed the public to follow this false trail, 
and it was wonderful to see his lieutenants, Des- 
marets, Veyrat, Real himself, looking for Morin- 



264 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Cochu all over Paris as if they were ignorant of the 
personality of their victim. And vi^hen Morin-Cochu 
was found alive and well in his shop in the Rue 
Saint-Denis, which he had not left for four years, 
they began just as zealously to look for his agent 
Festau, who might well be the murdered man. 

CafFarelli, however, was not to be caught in this 
clumsy trap. He knew how matters stood now, and 
showed his indignation. He wrote very courageously 
to Real : "You will doubtless ask me, M. le Comte, 
why I have not tried to show up the truth ? My 
answer is simple : it is publicly rumoured that the ex- 
pedition of the gendarmes was ordered by M. the 

Senator Comte de P , to whom were given the 

papers found on the murdered man, and who has gone 
to Paris, no doubt to transmit them to his Excellency 
the Minister of Police. Ought I not to respect the 
secret of the authorities ? '* 

And all that had occurred in his department for the 
two last years that it had not been considered advis- 
able to tell him of, all the irregularities that in his de- 
sire for peace he had thought he should shut his eyes 
to, all the affronts that he had patiently endured, 
came back to his mind. He felt his heart swell with 
disgust at cowardly acts, dishonourable tools, and 
odious snares, and nobly explained his feelings : 

" Certainly I am not jealous of executing severe 
measures and I should like never to have any of that 
kind to enforce. But I owe it to myself as well as 
to the dignity of my office not to remain prefect in 
name only, and if any motives whatever can destroy 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 265 

confidence in me to this point on important matters 
I must simply be told of it and I shall know how to 
resign without murmuring. It is not permissible to 
treat a man whose honesty and zeal cannot be mis- 
taken, in the manner in which I have been treated 
for some time. I cannot conceal from you, M. le 
Comte, that I am keenly wounded at the measures 
that have been taken towards me. It has been 
thought better to put faith in people of tarnished and 
despicable reputation, the terror of families, than in a 
man who has only sought the good of the country he 
represented, and known no other ambition than that 
of acting wisely." 

And this letter, so astonishing from the pen of an 
imperial prefect, was a sort of revenge for all the poor 
people for whom the police had laid such odious 
traps ; it would remind Fouche of all the Licquets 
and Foisons who in the exercise of justice found 
matter for repugnant comedies. It was surprising 
that Licquet had had no hand in the affair of La De- 
li vrande. Had he breathed it to Real ? It is pos- 
sible, though there is no indication of his interference, 
albeit his manner is recognised in the scenario of the 
snare to which d'Ache fell a victim, and in the fact 
that he appeared at the end, coming from Rouen 
with his secretary Dupont, and the husband of the 
woman Levasseur who was said to have been d' Ache's 
mistress. 

On the morning of September 23d, a meeting took 
place at seven o'clock at the Mayor of Luc's house. 
The doctors who had held the autopsy were there. 



266 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

Captain Mancel and Foison, who was in great agita- 
tion, although he tried to hide it, at having to assist at 
the exhumation of his victim. They started for the 
cemetery, and the grave-digger did his work. After 
fifteen minutes the shovel struck the board that cov- 
ered d'Ache's body, and soon after the corpse was 
seen. The beard had grown thick and strong. 
Foison gazed at it. It was indeed the man with 
whom he had travelled a whole night, chatting 
amiably while each step brought him nearer to the 
assassins who were waiting for him. Licquet moved 
about with complete self-control, talking of the time 
when he had known the man who lay there, his 
face swollen but severe, his nose thin as an eagle's 
beak, his lips tightened. Suddenly the detective re- 
membered a sign that he had formerly noted, and or- 
dered the dead man's boots to be removed. All pres- 
ent could then see that d'Ache's " toe-nails were so 
grown over into his flesh that he walked on them." 
Foison also saw, and wishing to brave this corpse, 
more terrifying for him than for any one else, he 
stooped and opened the dead lips with the end of his 
cane. A wave of fetid air struck the assassin full 
in the face, and he fell backward with a cry of 
fear. 

This incident terminated the enquiry; the body 
was returned to the earth, and those who had been 
present at the exhumation started for La Delivrande. 
Foison walked alone behind the others ; no one spoke 
to him, and when they arrived at the mayor's, where 
all had been invited to dine, he remained on the 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 267 

threshold which he dared not cross, knowing that for 
the rest of his life he would never again enter the 
house of an honest man. 

The same evening at Caen, where everything was 
known, although Fouche was still looking for Morin- 
Cochu, the vengeance of the corpse annihilating 
Foison was the topic of all conversations. There 
was a certain gaiety in the town, that was proud of 
its prefect's attitude. When the curtain went up at 
the theatre, while all the young " swells " were in 
the orchestra talking of the event that was agitating 
" society," they saw a blonde woman with a red scarf 
on her shoulders in one of the boxes. The first one 
that saw her could not believe his eyes : it was Mme. 
de Vaubadon ! The name was at first whispered, 
then a murmur went round that at last broke into an 
uproar. The whole theatre rose trembling, and with 
raised fists cried : " Down with the murderess ! She 
is the woman with the red shawl ; it is stained with 
d'Ache's blood. Death to her ! " 

The unhappy woman tried to put on a bold face, 
and remained calm ; it is supposed that Pontecoulant 
was in the theatre, and perhaps she hoped that he, at 
least, would champion her. But when she under- 
stood that in that crowd, among whom many perhaps 
had loved her, no one now would defend her, she rose 
and left her box, while some of the most excited 
hustled into the corridor to hoot her in passing. She 
at last escaped and got to her house in the Rue Guil- 
bert, and the next day she left Caen forever. 

Less culpable certainly, and now pitied by all to 



268 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

whom d' Ache's death recalled the affair of Quesnay, 
Mme. Acquet was spending her last days in the con- 
ciergerie at Rouen. After the petition for a reprieve 
on account of her pregnancy, and the visit of two 
doctors, who said they could not admit the truth of 
her plea, Ducolombier used all his efforts to obtain 
grace from the Emperor. As soon as the sentence 
was pronounced he had hurried to Paris in quest of 
means of approaching his Majesty. His relative, 
Mme. de Saint-Leonard, wife of the Mayor of Fa- 
laise, joined him there, and got her relatives in official 
circles to interest themselves. But the Emperor was 
then living in a state of continual agitation ; Laeken, 
Mayence and Cassel were as familiar stopping-places 
as Saint-Cloud and Fontainebleau, and even if a few 
minutes' audience could be obtained, what hope was 
there of fixing his attention on the life of an insignifi- 
cant woman ? Chauveau-Lagarde advised the inter- 
vention of Mme. Acquet's three girls, the eldest now 
twelve, and the youngest not eight years old. Mourn- 
ing garments were hastily bought for them, and they 
were sent to Paris on January 24th, with a Mile. Bodi- 
not. Every day they pursued the Emperor's carriage 
through the town, as he went to visit the manufac- 
tories. Timoleon, Mme. de Saint-Leonard, and 
Mile, de Seran took turns with the children ; they 
went to Malmaison, to Versailles, to Meudon. At 
last, on March 2d, at Sevres, one of the children suc- 
ceeded in getting to the door of the imperial carriage, 
and put a petition into the hands of an officer, but it 
probably never reached the Emperor, for this step that 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 269 

had cost so much money and trouble remained inef- 
fectual. 

There are among Mme. de Combray's papers more 
than ten drafts of petitions addressed to the Emper- 
or's brothers, to Josephine, and even to foreign 
princes. But each of them had much to ask for him- 
self, and all were afraid to importune the master. The 
latter was now in Germany, cutting his way to 
Vienna, and poor Mme. Acquet would have had 
slight place in his thoughts in spite of the illusions of 
her friends, had he ever even heard her name. In 
April the little Acquets returned to Mme. Dusaussay 
in Rouen. She wrote to Timoleon : 

" I am not surprised that you were not satisfied 
with the children ; until now they have only been re- 
strained by fear, and the circumstances of the journey 
to Paris brought them petting and kindness of which 
they have taken too much advantage. If worse 
trouble comes to Mme. Acquet, we will do our best to 
keep them in ignorance of it, and it is to be hoped 
the same can be done for your mother." 

And so all hope of grace seemed lost for the poor 
woman, and it would have been very easy to forget 
her in prison, for who could be specially interested in 
her death ? Neither Fouche, Real, the prefect nor 
even Licquet, who, once the verdict was given, seemed 
to have lost all animosity towards his victims. Only 
the imperial procurer, Chapais-Marivaux, seemed de- 
termined on the execution of the sentence. He had 
already caused two consultations to be held on the sub- 
ject of Mme. Acquet's health. The specialists could 



270 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

not or would not decide upon it, and this gave some 
hope to Mme. de Combray, who from her cell in 
Bicetre still presided over all efforts made for her 
daughter, and continued to hold a firm hand over her 
family. 

As the Emperor had now entered Vienna in tri- 
umph, the Marquise thought it a good time to implore 
once more the conqueror's pity. She sent for her son 
Timoleon on June ist. She had decided to send her 
two eldest grandchildren to Vienna with their aunt 
Mme. d'Houel and the faithful Ducolombier, who 
offered to undertake the long journey. Chauveau- 
Lagarde drew up a petition for the children to give to 
Napoleon, and they left Rouen about July loth, ar- 
riving in Vienna the fortnight following the battle of 
Wagram. Ducolombier at once sought a means of 
seeing the Emperor. Hurried by the Marquise, who 
allowed no discussion of the methods that seemed 
good to her, he had started without recommendations, 
letters of introduction or promises of an audience, and 
had to wait for chance to give him a moment's inter- 
view with Napoleon. He established himself with 
Mme. d'Houel and the children at SchcEbriinn, where 
the imperial quarters were, and by dint of solicitations 
obtained the privilege of going into the court of the 
chateau with other supplicants. 

The Emperor was away ; he had wished to revisit 
the scene of his brilliant victory, and during the 
whole day Ducolombier and his companions waited 
his return on the porch of the chateau. Towards 
evening the gate opened, the guard took up arms, 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 271 

drums beat and the Emperor appeared on horseback in 
the immense courtyard, preceded by his guides and 
his mameluke, and followed by a numerous staff. The 
hearts of the poor little Acquets must have beaten fast 
when they saw this master of the world from whom 
they were going to beg their mother's life. In a 
moment the Emperor was upon them ; Ducolombier 
pushed them ; they fell on their knees. 

Seeing these mourning figures, Napoleon thought 
he had before him the widow and orphans of some 
officer killed during the campaign. He raised the 
children kindly. 

" Sire ! Give us back our mother ! " they sobbed. 
The Emperor, much surprised, took the petition 
from Mme. d'Houel's hands and read it through. 
There were a few moments of painful silence ; he raised 
his eyes to the little girls, asked Ducolombier a few 
brief questions, then suddenly starting on, 
" I cannot," he said drily. 

And he disappeared among the groups humbly bow- 
ing in the hall. Some one who witnessed the scene 
relates that the Emperor was very much moved when 
reading the petition. " He changed colour several 
times, tears were in his eyes and his voice trembled." 
The Duke of Rovigo asserted that pardon would be 
granted ; the Emperor's heart had already pronounced 
it, but he was very angry with the niinister of police, 
who after having made a great fuss over this affair 
and got all the credit, left him supreme arbiter without 
having given him any information concerning it. 
"If the case is a worthy one," said Napoleon, 



272 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

" why did he not send me word of it ? and if it is 
not, why did he give passports to a family whom I 
am obliged to send away in despair ? " 

The poor children had indeed to return to France, 
knowing that they took, as it were, her death sentence 
to their mother. Each relay that brought them 
nearer to her was a step towards the scaffold ; noth- 
ing could now save the poor woman, and she waited 
in resignation. Never, since Le Chevalier's death, 
had she lost the impassive manner that had astonished 
the spectators in court. Whether solitude had altered 
her ardent nature, or whether she looked on death as 
the only possible end to her adventurous existence, 
she seemed indifferent as to her fate, and thought no 
longer of the future. Licquet had long abandoned 
her; he had been "her last friend." Of all the sur- 
vivors of the affair of Quesnay she was the only one 
left in the conciergerie, the others having gone to 
serve their terms in Bicetre or other fortresses. 

Whilst it had seemed possible that Mme. Acquet's 
friends might obtain the Emperor's interest in her 
case, she had received great care and attention, but 
since the return of her daughters from Vienna things 
had changed. She had become once more "the 
woman Acquet," and the interest that had been taken 
in her gave place to brutal indifference. On August 
23d (and this date probably accords with the return of 
the children and their aunt) Chapais-Marivaux, in 
haste to end the affair, sent three health-officers to ex- 
amine her, but these good people, knowing the conse- 
quence of their diagnosis, declared that " the symp- 



THE FATE OF D'ACHE 273 

toms made it impossible for them to pronounce an 
opinion on the state of the prisoner.'* 

Chapais-Marivaux took a month to find doctors 
who would not allow pity to interfere with their pro- 
fessional duty, and on October 6th the prefect wrote 
to Real : " M. le Procureur-General has just had 
the woman Acquet examined by four surgeons, three 
of whom had not seen her before. They have certi- 
fied that she is not pregnant, and so she is to be exe- 
cuted to-day." 

We know nothing of the way in which she pre- 
pared for death, nor of the feeling which the news of 
her imminent execution must have occasioned in the 
prison ; but when she was handed over to the execu- 
tioner for the final arrangements, Mme. Acquet wrote 
two or three letters to beg that her children might 
never fall into her husband's hands. Her toilet was 
then made ; her beautiful black hair, which she had 
cut off on coming to the conciergerie two years 
previously, fell now under the executioner's scissors ; 
she put on a sort of jacket of white flannel, and her 
hands were tied behind her back. She was now ready ; 
it was half past four in the afternoon, the doors opened, 
and a squad of gendarmes surrounded the cart. 

The cortege went by the " Gros-Horloge " to the 
" Vieux-Marche." Some one who saw Mme. Acquet 
pass, seated in the cart beside the executioner Ferey, 
says that " her white dress and short black hair blow- 
ing in her face made the paleness of her skin con- 
spicuous ; she was neither downcast nor bold ; the 
sentence was cried aloud beside the cart." 



274 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

She died calmly, as she had lived for months. At 
five o'clock she appeared on the platform, very white 
and very tranquil ; unresisting, she let them tie her ; 
without fear or cry she lay on the board which swung 
and carried her under the knife. Her head fell with- 
out anything happening to retard the execution, and 
the authorities congratulated themselves on the fact in 
the report sent to Real that evening : " The thing 
caused no greater sensation than that ordinarily pro- 
duced by similar events ; the rather large crowd did 
not give the slightest trouble." 

And those who had stayed to watch the scaffold 
disappeared before the gendarmes escorting the men 
who had come to take away the body. A few fol- 
lowed it to the cemetery of Saint-Maur where the 
criminals were usually buried. The basket was 
emptied into a ditch that had been dug not far from a 
young tree to which some unknown hand had attached 
a black ribbon, to mark the spot which neither cross 
nor tombstone might adorn. The rain and wind soon 
destroyed this last sign ; and nothing now remains to 
show the corner of earth in the deserted and aban- 
doned cemetery in which still lies the body of the 
woman whose rank in other times would have merited 
the traditional epitaph : " A very high, noble and 
powerful lady." 



CHAPTER X 

THE CHOUANS SET FREE 

A LETTER in a woman's handwriting, addressed to 
Timoleon de Combray, Hotel de la Loi, Rue de 
Richelieu, its black seal hastily broken, contains these 
words : " Alas, my dear cousin, you still continued 
to hope when all hope was over. ... I cannot 
leave your mother and I am anxious about M. de 
Bonnoeil's condition." 

This is all that we can glean of the manner in 
which Mme. Acquet's mother and brothers learned of 
her execution on October 6th. Mme. de Combray 
at least displayed a good deal of energy, if not great 
calmness. After the winter began, the letters she 
wrote Timoleon regained their natural tone. The 
great sorrow seems to have been forgotten ; they all 
were leagued together against Acquet, who still 
reigned triumphant at Donnay, and threatened to ab- 
sorb the fortune of the whole family. The trial had 
cost an enormous sum. Besides the money stolen in 
the woods at Quesnay, which the Marquise had to re- 
fund, she had been obliged to spend money freely in 
order to " corrupt Licquet," for Chauveau-Lagarde's 
fee, for her advocate Maitre Gady de la Vigne, and 
for Ducolombier's journeys to Paris and Vienna with 
the little girls, — the whole outlay amounting to nearly 

275 



276 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

125,000 francs; and as the farms at Tournebut were 
tenantless, while Acquet retained all the estates in 
lower Normandy and would not allow them anything, 
the Marquise and her sons found their income re- 
duced to almost nothing. There remained not a 
single crown of the 25,000 francs deposited in August, 
1807, with Legrand. All had been spent on "neces- 
saries for the prisoners, or in their interests." 

Acquet was intractable. When the time for 
settling up came, he refused insolently to pay his 
share of the lawsuit or for his children's education. 
" Mme. de Combray, in order to carry out her own 
frenzied plots," he stated, " had foolishly used her 
daughter's money in paying her accomplices, and 
now she came and complained that Mme. Acquet 
lacked bread and that she supported her, besides pay- 
ing for the children's schooling. . . . Mme. 
Acquet left her husband's house on the advice of her 
mother who wished to make an accomplice of her. 
They took away the children, their father did not 
even know the place of their retreat, and the very 
persons who had abducted them came and asked him 
for the cost of their maintenance." 

This was his plea ; to which the Combrays re- 
plied : " The fee of Mme. Acquet's lawyer, the 
expenses of the journey to Vienna and of the little 
girls' stay in Paris that they might beg for their 
mother's pardon, devolved, if not on the prisoner's 
husband, at least on her young children as her heirs ; 
and in any case Acquet ought to pay the bill." But 
the latter, who was placed in a very strong position 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 277 

by the services he had rendered Real and by the pro- 
tection of Pontecoulant, with whom he had associated 
himself, replied that Chauveau-Lagarde, while pre- 
tending to plead for Mme. Acquet, had in reality 
only defended Mme. de Combray : " All Rouen 
who heard the counsel's speech bears witness that the 
daughter was sacrificed to save the mother. . . . 
The real object of their solicitude had been the Mar- 
quise, Certainly they took very little interest in their 
sister, and the moment her eyes were closed in death, 
were base enough to ask for her funeral expenses in 
court, and hastened to denounce her children to the 
Minister of Public Affairs in order that they might be 
forced to pay for the sentence pronounced against 
their mother." 

The case thus stated, the discussion could only be- 
come a scandal. Bonnoeil disclosed the fact that his 
brother-in-law, on being asked by a third person what 
influences he could bring to bear in order to obtain 
Mme. Acquet's pardon, had replied that " such steps 
offered little chance of success, and that from the 
moment the unhappy woman was condemned, the 
best way to save her from dying on the scaffold, 
would be to poison her in prison.'* A fresh suit was 
begun. The correspondence which passed between the 
exasperated Combrays and their brother-in-law, who 
succeeded in maintaining his self-control, must have 
made all reconciliation impossible. A letter in 
Bonnoeil's handwriting is sufficient to illustrate the 
style : 



278 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

" Is it charitable for an old French chevalier, a de- 
fender of the Faith and of the Throne, to increase the 
sorrows on which his two brothers-in-law are feeding 
in the silence of oblivion ? Does he hope in his ex- 
asperation that he will be able to force them into a 
repetition of the story of the crimes committed 
by Desrues, Cartouche, Pugatscheff, Shinder- 
hannes, and other impostors, thieves, garrotters and 
ruffians, who have rendered themselves famous by their 
murders, poisonings, cruelties and cowardly actions ? 
They promise that, once their case is decided, they 
will not again trouble Sieur Acquet de Ferolles." 

The invectives were, to say the least, ill-timed. 
The Combrays had gone to law in order to force this 
man, whom they compared to the most celebrated 
assassins, to undertake the education of their sister's 
three children. These orphans, for whose schooling 
at the Misses Dusaussay's no one was ready to pay, 
were pitied by all who knew of their situation. Some 
pious ladies mentioned it to the Cardinal Archbishop 
of Rouen, who kindly offered to subscribe towards 
the cost of their education. The Combrays proudly 
refused, for which Acquet naturally blamed them. 
" They think their nieces would be dishonoured by 
accepting a favour," he wrote. 

Mme. de Combray might perhaps have yielded, if 
any one had made her understand that her grand- 
daughters were the only stake she had left. In fact, 
since Mme. Acquet's death, no stone had been left 
unturned to obtain the old Marquise's pardon. 
Ducolombier even went to Navarre to entreat the 
help of the Empress Josephine, whose credit did not 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 279 

stand very high. We can understand that after the 
official notification of the imperial divorce, and as 
soon as the great event became known, the Combrays, 
renouncing their relationship (which was of the very 
slightest) with the Tascher de la Pageries, began 
immediately to count in advance on the clemency of 
the future Empress, be she who she might. When 
it was certain that an Archduchess was to succeed 
General Beauharnais's widow on the throne of France, 
Ducolombier set out for Vienna in the hope of out- 
stripping the innumerable host of those who went 
there as petitioners. It does not appear that he got 
farther than Carlsruhe, and his journey was absolutely 
fruitless ; but it soon became known that the imperial 
couple intended making a triumphal progress through 
the north of France, ending at Havre or Rouen, and 
it was then decided that the little Acquets should 
appear again. 

At three o'clock in the afternoon of May 30th, the 
Emperor and Empress arrived at Rouen. Ducolom- 
bier, walking in front of the three little girls, who 
were escorted by Mile. Querey, tried to force a pas- 
sage for them through the streets leading to the im- 
perial residence, but could not get into the house, and 
was obliged to content himself with handing the peti- 
tion, drawn up by Chaveau-Legarde, to the King of 
Westphalia. He hoped the next day to be able to 
place the children on the Emperor's route as he was 
on his way to visit some spinning mills ; but as soon as 
he was in the street with the orphans, he learnt that 
Napoleon had inspected the factories at half past three 



28o THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

in the morning, and that his departure was fixed for 
ten o'clock. Branzon, a revenue collector and friend 
of Licquet's procured the little Acquets a card from the 
prefect, by showing which they were allowed to wait at 
the door of the Emperor's residence. We quote the 
very words of the letter written the same day by 
Ducolombier to Bonnoeil and the old Marquise : 

" Mile. Querey and the three little girls were per- 
mitted to wait at the door of the prefecture where, as 
you must know, they allow no one. As soon as their 
Majesties' carriage came out, little Caroline cried out 
to the Empress. The Emperor lowered the window 
to take the petition, and handed it to the Empress, as 
it was meant for her. The Empress bent forward in 
order to see them. 

This time their confidence was unbounded. The 
old Marquise was already congratulated on her ap- 
proaching liberation ; but days passed and nothing 
more was heard of it. They waited patiently for a 
year, their hopes growing fainter each day, and when 
it became only too evident that the petition had had 
no effect, Timoleon ventured to remind the Empress 
of it, and drew up in his own name a fresh request 
for his mother's pardon, with no better result than be- 
fore. A supreme and useless effort was made on the 
30th of August, 1813, when Marie Louise was Em- 
press-Queen-Regent. At this time Bonnoeil had at 
length been let out of prison, where he had been un- 
justly detained since August, 1807. He had not ap- 
peared before the court, and consequently was not 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 281 

condemned, but was detained as a "precautionary 
measure." As his health was much impaired by his 
stay at the conciergerie, the prefect took it upon him- 
self to have him removed, and placed him at Rouen 
under the supervision of the police. 

For there he could at least keep himself informed 
of what was going on. If the newspapers gave but 
little news, he could still collect the rumours of the 
town. Doubtless he was the first to advise his mother 
to submit to her fate ; and from this very moment the 
Marquise displayed an astonishing serenity, as if she 
in fact foresaw the fall of him whom she considered 
her personal enemy. She had accustomed herself 
very quickly to life in the prison to which she had 
been transferred in 18 13. The rules were not very 
strict for those inmates who had a little money to 
spend; she received visitors, sent to Tournebut for 
her backgammon-board and her book of rules, and 
calmly awaited the long-hoped-for thunderbolt. 

It fell at length, and the old Chouan must have 
flushed with triumph when she heard that Bonaparte 
was crushed. What a sudden change ! In less than 
a day, the prisoner became agam the venerable Mar- 
quise de Combray, a victim to her devotion to the 
royal cause, a heroine, a martyr, a saint ; while at the 
other end of Normandy, Acquet de Ferolles, who had 
at last decided to take in his three children, felt the 
ground tremble under his feet, and hurriedly made his 
preparations for flight. In their eagerness to make 
themselves acceptable to the Combrays, people " who 
would not have raised a finger to help them when 



282 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

they were overwhelmed with misfortune," now re- 
vealed to them things that had hitherto been hidden 
from them ; and thus the Marquise and her sons 
learned how Senator Pontecoulant, out of hatred for 
CafFarelli, " whom he wished to ruin," had under- 
taken, " with the aid of Acquet de Ferolles," to 
hand over d'Ache to assassins. Proscribed royalists 
emerged on all sides from the holes where they had 
been burrowing for the last fifteen years. There was a 
spirit of retaliation in the air. Every one was making 
up his account and writing out the bill. In this home 
of the Chouannerie, where hatred ran rife and there 
were so many bitter desires for revenge, a terrible re- 
action set in. The short notes, which the Marquise 
exchanged with her sons and servants during the last 
few days of her captivity, expressed neither joy at 
the Princes' return nor happiness at her own restora- 
tion to liberty. They might be summed up in these 
words : " It is our turn now," and the germ of the 
dark history of the Restoration and the revolutions 
which followed it is contained in the outpourings of 
this embittered heart, which nothing save vengeance 
could henceforth satisfy. 

On Sunday, May ist, 1814, at the hour when Louis 
XVIII was to enter Saint Ouen, the doors of the 
prison were opened for the Marquise de Combray, 
who slept the following night at her house in the Rue 
des Carmelites. The next day at 1.30 p. m. she set 
out for Tournebut with Mile. Querey ; her bailiff, 
Leclerc, came as far as Rouen to fetch her in his 
trap. All the public conveyances were overcrowded; 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 283 

on the roads leading to Paris there was an uninter- 
rupted stream of vehicles of all sorts, of cavaliers and 
of foot passengers, all hurrying to see the King's re- 
turn to his capital. Bonnceil, who was at last deliv- 
ered from police supervision, had to set out on foot 
for Tournebut ; he walked the distance during the 
night, and arrived in the morning to find his mother 
already installed there and making an inspection of 
the despoiled old chateau which she had never thought 
to see again. The astonishing reversions of fate 
make one think of the success which the opera " La 
Dame Blanche '* had some years later. This charm- 
ing work sang their own history to these nobles who 
were still smarting, and recalled to them their ruined 
past. The abandoned " Chateau d'Avenel," the 
" poor Dame Marguerite " spinning in the deserted 
halls and dreaming of her masters, the mysterious 
being who watched over the destinies of the noble 
family, and the amusing revival of those last vestiges 
of feudal times, the bailiff, the bell in the turret, the 
gallant paladin, the knight's banner— all these things 
saddened our grandmothers by arousing the melan- 
choly spectre of the good old times. 

At the beginning of August, 1814, Guerin-Bruslart, 
who had become M. le Chevalier de Bruslard, Field 
Marshal in the King's army, attracted his Majesty's 
attention to the survivors of the affair of Quesnay. 
He took Le Chevalier's son, aged twelve years, to the 
Tuileries, and the King accorded him a pension and 
a scholarship at one of the royal colleges. The very 
same day Louis XVHI signed a royal pardon, which 



284 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

the Court of Rouen ratified a few days later, by which 
Mme. de Combray's sentence was annulled. On 
September 5th the Marquise saw her wildest dream 
realised and was presented to the King — a fact which 
was mentioned in the Moniteur of the following day. 

This signal favour rallied many to the Combrays. 
Denunciations of Acquet and his friends were heard 
on all sides. The letters written at this period from 
Bonnoeil to his brother testify to the astonishment 
they felt at these revelations. They made a fresh dis- 
covery every day. " M. Bruslard told me the other 
day that La Vaubadon wished to have him arrested, 
but that he took care not to fall into the trap she had 
set for him." " With regard to Licquet, he knew 
d'Ache well and had made up to him before the affair 
with Georges, believing at that time that there would 
be a change of government." " It is quite certain 
that it was Senator Pontecoulant who had d'Ache 
killed ; Frotte's death was partly due to him." " With 
regard to Acquet, M. de Ri voire told Placene that he 
had been seen in the temple about six years ago, and 
that every one there considered him a spy and an in- 
former. . . ." 

Thus, little by little Mme. de Combray arrived at 
the conclusion that all her misfortunes had been caused 
by her enemies' hatred. In 18 15 a biographer pub- 
lished a life of the Marquise, which was preceded by 
a dedication to herself which she had evidently dic- 
tated, and which placed her high up in the list of roy- 
alist martyrs. 

This halo pleased her immensely. She was present 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 285 

at the fetes given at the Rouen prefecture, where she 
walked triumphantly— still holding herself very erect 
and wearing lilies in her hair — through the very halls 
into which she had once been dragged handcuffed by 
Savoye-Rollin's gaolers. At dinners where she was 
an honoured guest she would recount, with astonish- 
ing calmness, her impressions of the pillory and the 
prisons. She sent a confidential agent to Donnay 
" to obtain news of the Sieur Acquet," who was not 
at all satisfied and by no means at ease, as we can well 
imagine. It was said that he had sent for his sister to 
come and take care of his three children, the eldest 
of whom was nearly twenty years of age. Acquet 
pretended to be ill in order to defer his departure from 
Donnay. He finally quitted Normandy early in the 
autumn of 18 14, taking with him his three daughters, 
" whom he counted on marrying ofF in his own 
home." " He is without house or home," wrote 
Mme. de Combray, " and possesses nothing but the 
shame by which he is covered." Acquet de Ferolles 
settled at Saint-Hilaire-de-Tulmont, where he died on 
April 6th, 18 15. 

With the Hundred Days came another sudden 
change. At the first rumour of Bonaparte's landing, 
Mme. de Combray set out for the coast and crossed 
to England. If the alarm was intense, it lasted but a 
short time. In July, 18 15, the Marquise returned to 
Tournebut, which she busied herself with repairing. 
She found scope for her energy in directing the work- 
men, in superintending to the smallest detail the ad- 
ministration of her estate, and in looking after her 



286 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

household with the particularity of former times. 
Although Louis XVHI's Jacobinism seems to have 
been the first thing that disillusioned the old royalist, 
she was none the less the Lady of Tournebut, and 
within the limits of her estate she could still believe 
that she had returned to the days before 1789. She 
still had her seat at church, and her name was to be 
found in 18 19 inscribed on the bell at Aubevoye of 
which she was patroness. 

Mme. de Combray never again quitted Tournebut, 
where she lived with her son Bonnoeil, waited upon 
by Catherine Querey, who had been faithful to her in 
her misfortunes. Except for this faithful girl, the 
Marquise had made a clean sweep of all her old serv- 
ants. None of them are to be found among the per- 
sons who surrounded her during the Restoration. 
These were a maid, Henriette Lerebour, a niece of 
Mile. Querey ; a cook, a coachman and a footman. 
During the years that followed, there was an inces- 
sant coming and going of workmen at Tournebut. 
In 1823 the chateau and its surrounding walls were 
still undergoing repairs. In the middle of October 
of the same year, Mme. de Combray, who was worn 
out, took to her bed. On the morning of Thursday, 
the 23d, it was reported that she was very ill, and two 
village women were engaged to nurse her. At eight 
o'clock in the evening the tolling of the bells an- 
nounced that the Marquise was no more. 

Her age was eighty-one years and nine months. 
When the judge called on Friday, at Bonnoeil's 
special request, to affix seals to her effects, he asked 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 287 

to be taken first into the chamber of death, where he 
saw the Marquise lying in her painted wooden bed, 
hung with chintz curtains. The funeral took place 
at the church of Aubevoye, the poor of the village 
forming an escort to the coffin which the men carried 
on their shoulders. After the service it was laid in a 
grave dug under a large dark tree at the entrance to the 
cemetery. The tomb, which is carefully kept, bears 
to this day a quite legible inscription setting forth in 
clumsy Latin the Marquise de Combray's extraordi- 
nary history. 

The liquidation of her debts, which followed on 
her decease and the division of her property, brought 
Acquet de Ferolles' daughters to Tournebut, all three 
of whom were well married. In making an inventory 
of the furniture in the chateau, they found amongst 
things forgotten in the attic the harp on which their 
mother had played when as a young girl she had lived 
at Tournebut, and a saddle v/hich the " dragoon '* 
may have used on her nocturnal rides towards the hill 
of Authevernes in pursuit of coaches. 

Mme. de Combray's sons kept Tournebut, and 
Bonnoeil continued to live there. There are many 
people in Aubevoye who remember him. He was a 
tall old man, with almost the figure of an athlete, 
though quite bowed and bent. His eyebrows were 
grizzled and bushy, his eyes large arid very dark, his 
complexion sunburned. He was somewhat gloomy, 
and seemed to care for nothing but to talk with a very 
faded and wrinkled old woman in a tall goffered cap, 
who was an object of veneration to everybody. This 



288 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

was Mile. Querey. All were aware she had been 
Mme. de Combray's confidante and knew all the 
Marquise's secrets : and she was often seen talking at 
great length to Bonnoeil about the past. 

Bonnoeil died at Tournebut in 1846, at the age of 
eighty-four, and the manor of Marillac did not long 
outlast him. Put up for sale in 1856, it was demol- 
ished in the following year and replaced by a large 
and splendid villa. While the walls of the old cha- 
teau were being demolished, the peasants of Aubevoye, 
who had so often listened to the legends concerning 
it, displayed great curiosity as to the mysteries which 
the demolition would disclose. Nothing was discov- 
ered but a partly filled up subterranean passage, which 
seemed to run towards the small chateau. The 
secret of the other hiding-places had long been known. 
A careful examination of the old dwelling produced 
only one surprise. A portmanteau containing 3,000 
francs in crowns and double-louis was found in a 
dark attic. Mme. de Combray's grandchildren 
knew so little of the drama of their house, that no 
one thought of connecting this find with the affairs of 
Quesnay, of which they had scarcely ever heard. It 
seems probable that this portmanteau belonged to the 
lawyer Lefebre and was hidden by him, unknown to 
the Marquise, in the hope of being able to recover it 
later on. 

A very few words will suffice to tell the fate of the 
other actors in this drama. Licquet was unfortunate ; 
but first of all he asked for the cross of the Legion of 
Honour. " I have served the government for twenty 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 289 

years,'* he wrote to Real. " I bristle with titles. I 
am the father of a family and am looked up to by the 
authorities. My only ambition is honour, and I am 
bold enough to ask for a sign. Will you be kind 
enough to obtain it for me ? " Did Real not dare to 
stand sponsor for such a candidate ? Did they think 
that the cross, given hitherto so parsimoniously to civil- 
ians, was not meant for the police ? Licquet was 
obliged to wait in patience. In the hope of increasing 
his claims to the honour he coveted, he went in quest 
of new achievements, and had the good fortune to dis- 
cover a second attack on a coach, far less picturesque, 
as a matter of fact, than the one to which he owed 
his fame, but which he undertook to work up like a 
master, and did it so well, by dint of disguises, forged 
letters, surprised confidences, the invention of imagi- 
nary persons, and other melodramatic tricks, that he 
succeeded in producing at the Criminal Court at 
Evreux seven prisoners against whom the evidence 
was so well concocted that five at least were in danger 
of losing their heads. But when the imperial Pro- 
curator arrived at the place, instead of accepting the 
work as completed, he carefully examined the papers 
referring to the inquiry. Disgusted at the means 
used to drag confessions from the accused, and indig- 
nant that his name should have been associated with 
so repulsive a comedy, he asked for explanations. 
Licquet attempted to brazen it out, but was scornfully 
told to hold his peace. Wounded to the quick, he 
began a campaign of recriminations, raillery and in- 
vective against the magistrates of Eure, which was 



290 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

only ended by the unanimous acquittal of the seven 
innocent persons whom he had delivered over to 
justice, and whose release the Procurator himself 
generously demanded. 

The blow fell all the heavier on Licquet as he was 
at the time deeply compromised in the frauds of his 
friend Branzon, a collector at Rouen, whose malver- 
sations had caused the ruin of Savoye-Rollin. The 
prefect's innocence was firmly established, but Bran- 
zon, who had already been imprisoned as a Chouan 
in the Temple, and whose history must have been a 
very varied one, was condemned to twelve years' im- 
prisonment in chains. 

This also was a blow to Licquet. Realising, dur- 
ing the early days of the Restoration, that the game 
he had played had brought him more enemies than 
friends, he thought it wise to leave Rouen, and like 
so many others lose himself among the police in Paris. 
Doubtless he was not idle while he was there, and if 
the fire of 187 1 had not destroyed the archives of the 
prefecture, it would have been interesting to search 
for traces of him. We seem to recognise his methods 
in the strangely dubious affair of the false dauphin, 
Mathurin Bruneau. This obscure intrigue was con- 
nected with Rouen ; his friend Branzon, who was 
detained at Bicetre, was the manager of it. A certain 
Joseph Paulin figured in it — a strange person, who 
boasted of having received the son of Louis XVI at 
the door of the temple and, for this reason, was a 
partisan of two dauphins. Joseph Paulin was, in my 
opinion, a very cunning detective, who was, moreover, 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 291 

charged with the surveillance of the believers, sincere 
or otherwise, in the survival of Louis XVII. In 
order the better to gain their confidence, he pretended 
to have had a hand in the young King's flight. With 
the exception of a few plausible allegations, the ac- 
counts he gave of his wonderful adventures do not 
bear investigation. What makes us think that he was 
Licquet's pupil, or that at least he had some connec- 
tion with the police of Rouen, is that in 18 17, at the 
time of the Bruneau intrigue, we find him marrying 
the woman, Delaitre, aged forty-six, and living on an 
allowance from the parish and a sum left him " by a 
person who had died at Bicetre." The woman 
Delaitre seemed to be identical with the spy whom 
Licquet had so cleverly utilised. 

Joseph Paulin died in 1842; his wife survived him 
twenty years, dying at last in the Rue Croix de Fer 
at the age of ninety-one. Up to the time of her 
death she received a small pension from the town. 
As to Licquet, he lived to one hundred — but without 
any decoration — in his lodging in the Rue Saint-Le. 
The old man's walks in the streets which were so 
familiar to him, must have been rich in memories. 
The " Gros-Horloge " under which the tumbrils had 
passed ; the " Vieux-Marche," where so many heads 
had fallen which the executioner owed to him ; le 
Faubourg Bouvreuil, where the graves of his victims 
grew green ; Bicetre, the old conciergerie, the palace 
itself, which he could see from his windows, — all 
these objects must have called up to his mind painful 
recollections. The certificate of his death, which 



292 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

bears the date February 7, 1855, simply describes 
him as an ex-advocate. 

Querelle, whose denunciation ruined Georges Ca- 
doudal, was set at liberty at the end of a year. Be- 
sides his life, Desmarets had promised him the sum 
of 80,000 francs to pay his debts with, but as they 
were in no hurry to hand him the money, his credi- 
tors lost patience and had him shut up in Sainte- 
Pelagie. Desmarets at last decided to pay up, and 
Querelle was sent to Piemont, where he lived on a 
small pension from the government. In 18 14 we 
find those of Georges' accomplices who had escaped 
the scaffold — among whom were Hozier and Amand 
Gaillard, — scattered among the prisons of the kingdom, 
in the fortresses of Ham, Joux, and Bouillon. Others 
who had been sent under surveillance forty leagues 
from Paris and the seacoast, reappeared, ruined by 
ten years of enforced idleness, threats and annoyances. 
Vannier the lawyer died in prison at Brest ; Bureau 
de Placene, who was let out of prison at the Restor- 
ation, assisted Bruslard in the distribution of the 
rewards granted by the King to those who had helped 
on the good cause. Allain, who had been condemned 
to death for contumacy by the decree of Rouen, gave 
himself up in 18 15. He was immediately set free, 
and a pension granted him. Seeing which, Joseph 
Buquet, who was in the same predicament, presented 
himself, and being acquitted immediately, returned to 
Donnay, dug up the 43,000 francs remaining over from 
the sum stolen in 1807, and lived " rich and despised.'* 
As to the girl Dupont, who had been Mme. Acquet's 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 



293 



confidante, she was kept in prison till 18 14. Being 
released on the King's return she immediately took 
refuge in a convent where she spent the rest of her 
life. 

Mme. de Vaubadon, who lived disguised under the 
name of Tourville, which had been her mother's, 
died in misery in a dirty lodging-house at Belleville 
on January 23, 1848 ; her body was borne on the 
following day to the parish cemetery, where the old 
register proves that no one bought a corner of ground 
for her where she could rest in peace. M. de Vauba- 
don had died eight years previously, having pardoned 
her some years before. 

Certain of the inhabitants of Saint-Lo still remem- 
ber the tall old man, always gloomy and with a pale 
complexion, who seemed to have only one idea, and 
who, to the last day of his life, loved and defended 
the woman to whom he had given his name. As for 
Foison, the murderer, he was made a lieutenant and 
received the cross of the Legion of Honour. Caf- 
farelli, to whose lot it fell to present it to him, excused 
himself on a plea of necessary absence. M. Lance, 
the Secretary-General for the prefecture, who was 
obliged to take his place, could not, as he bestowed 
the decoration, refrain " from letting him observe the 
disgust he felt for his person, and the shame he ex- 
perienced at seeing the star of the brave thus pro- 
faned." M. Lance was dismissed at the instance of 
Foison, who, soon afterwards, was made an officer, 
and despatched to the army in Spain, whither his rep- 
utation had preceded him. Tradition assures us that 



294 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

an avenger had reserved for him a death similar to 
d'Ache's, and that he was found on the road one 
morning pierced with bullets. Nothing is farther 
from the truth. Foison became a captain and lived 
till 1843. 

D'Ache's family, which returned to Gournay after 
Georges Cadoudal's execution, was disturbed afresh at 
Mme. de Combray's arrest. As we have said before, 
Licquet had had Jean Baptiste de Caqueray (who had 
married Louise d'Ache in 1806) brought handcuffed 
into Rouen, but had scarcely examined him. " Ca- 
queray," he wrote, " is quite innocent ; he quarrelled 
with his father-in-law ; " and he dismissed him with 
this remark : " If only he had known the prey he 
was allowing to escape ! " Up to 1814 Caqueray did 
not again attract the attention of the police. At the 
Restoration he was made a captain of gendarmes. 
His wife Louise d'Ache was in 1815 appointed 
lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Bourbon, by whom 
she had in part been brought up, being on her 
mother's side the niece of the gentle Vicomte de 
Roquefeuille, who had previously " consoled the 
Duchess so tenderly for the desertion of her incon- 
stant husband." Louise d'Ache died in 181 7, and 
her sister Alexandrine, who was unmarried, was in 
her turn summoned to the Princess, and took the title 
of Comtesse d'Ache. In spite of the Princes' 
favour, Caqueray remained a captain of gendarmes 
till he left the service in 1830. It was only then 
made known that in 1804, at the time of Querelle's 
disclosures and of the journey undertaken by Savary 



THE CHOUANS SET FREE 295 

to Biville, to surprise a fourth landing of conspirators, 
it was he, Jean-Baptiste de Caqueray, who, warned 
by a messenger from Georges that " all were com- 
promised," started from Gournay on horseback, 
reached the farm of La Poterie in twelve hours, 
crossed three lines of gendarmes, and signalled to the 
English brig which was tacking along the coast, to 
stand out to sea. Caqueray immediately remounted 
his horse, endured the fire of an ambuscade, flung 
himself into the forest of Eu, and succeeded in reach- 
ing Gournay before his absence had been noticed, and 
just in time to receive a visit from Captain Manginot, 
who, as we have already related, sent him to ri.e 
Temple with Mme. d'Ache and Louise. 

Caqueray died in 1834, leaving several children 
quite unprovided for. They were, however, adopted 
by their grandmother, d' Ache's widow, who survived 
her daughters and son-in-law. She was small and had 
never been pretty, but had very distinguished and im- 
posing manners. She is said to have made the fol- 
lowing answer to a great judge who, at the time of 
her arrest, asked her where her husband was : " You 
doubtless do not know. Monsieur, whom you are ad- 
dressing." From that time they ceased questioning 
her. She lived on till 1836. She was never heard to 
complain, though she and her family had lived in 
great poverty and known constant an)ciety. She had 
lost her money, and her husband had died at the hand 
of a treacherous assassin. All her children had gone 
before her, and in spite of all her misfortunes, and 
old though she was, she still strove to bring up her 



296 THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS 

grandchildren " to love their lawful King," for whose 
sake she had now nothing left to sacrifice. 

Perhaps in the course of that tragic night when 
the defeated Napoleon found himself alone in deserted 
Fontainebleau, the great Emperor's mind may have re- 
verted jealously to those stubborn royalists whom 
neither their Princes' apathy nor the certainty of 
never being rewarded could daunt. At that very mo- 
ment the generals whom he had loaded with titles and 
wealth were hastening to meet the Bourbons. He 
had not one friend left among the hundred million 
people he had governed in the day of his power. His 
mameluke had quitted him, his valet had fled. And 
if he thought of Georges guillotined in the Place de 
la Greve, of Le Chevalier who fell at the wall at 
Grenelle, of d'Ache stabbed on the road, he must 
also have thought of the speech ascribed to Crom- 
well : " Who would do the like for me ? " 

And perhaps of all his pangs this was the cruellest 
and most vengeful. His cause must, in its turn, be 
sanctified by misfortune to gain its fanatics and its 
martyrs. 



FINIS 



